Pod Insights The Chad & Cheese Podcast 2026 Predictions Show About this episode It's our prediction episode. What else could you possibly need to know to push PLAY?
We recap 2025 - what we and our friends got right and wrong - and get our crystal ball out for 2026. This year, friends of the show, Jason Putnam, Quincy Valencia, Emi Beredugu and J. T. O'Donnell join the boys - including Lieven - in guessing what's in store for the world of work in the year to come.
The usual suspects, like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, iCIMS and others are highlighted, as well as big trends like automation, A. I. and more are discussed. So what are you waiting for? Get a jump on '26 and hit the ground running.
Transcript 12,340 words · 7 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Dude, it turns out that Winston Smart Recruiter's first AI hiring sidekick is taking all the grunt work out of Recruiter's Day. Things like candidate screening, scheduling, all the admin garbage no one actually wants to touch. Winston can do it all.
0:17 Speaker 01 Man, you know I'm a fan of using new tech that takes the boring repetitive crap out of a Recruiter's Day and allows them to have more time to connect with hiring managers and candidates.
0:29 Speaker 00 Yep, Winston is doing the heavy lifting while recruiters kick back and do the actual hiring stuff. You know, like talking to people.
0:37 Speaker 01 I really dig that Smart Recruiters is evolving out of the legacy ATS model and embracing cleaner processes using AI. With most ATS providers, it's like, hey, 2003 called and it wants its 30-minute application process back.
0:53 Speaker 00 No doubt. It sounds like Rebecca and the team are using Winston to push Smart Recruiters into the future while the ATS vendors are basically on an AOL dial-up modem with a dashboard.
1:05 Speaker 01 With Smart Recruiters, Winston does the grind and the recruiters get the glory.
1:11 Speaker 00 For more information on superhuman hiring with Winston, visit smartrecruiters.com. That's smartrecruiters.com.
1:19 Speaker 01 Start using Winston today, or I guess you can stick with...
1:25 Speaker 02 Now we return you to our regular scheduled program in progress.
1:28 Speaker 00 Let's just, let's just admit the Fortune 500 are all gonna use Grok. Can we just...
1:35 Speaker 00 Because Grok for enterprise is coming in 2026, everybody. Just...
1:41 Speaker 01 Porn for everybody. Porn for everybody.
1:45 Speaker 00 Porn biker bars in every Fortune 500 business.
1:50 Speaker 03 Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Soash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheeseman Podcast.
2:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, the future's so bright, we gotta wear shades. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel. Welcome to the Jungle Cheeseman.
2:29 Speaker 01 This is Chad. Party like it's 1989. So wash.
2:34 Speaker 04 And this is Levin, not being replaced by a robot yet.
2:40 Speaker 01 Yet.
2:41 Speaker 00 This episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, it's our prediction episode. And always remember, kids, predictions are never wrong. They just haven't happened yet. Let's do this.
2:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. Meet Dave. Dave's resume says he's customer centric, a point of sale systems expert and a people leader. Reality check, Dave's resume was written by AI and AI applied to thousands of jobs while Dave was on his couch binging episodes of Jackass all day.
3:15 Speaker 01 How can you insert trust back into your hiring process? One word, Tatio. Tatio cuts through the BS by using real world job simulations, testing candidates so you can actually see how they perform the job before you waste a single minute interviewing or onboarding a fake. Insert trust back into your hiring process with Tatio. Check out Tatio today at T A T I O dot I O. That's T A T I O dot I O. I feel good.
3:47 Speaker 00 And we're back.
3:50 Speaker 01 Okay, Matt, Matt, every CEO should do one of these. They should.
3:54 Speaker 00 The wedge.
3:55 Speaker 01 Just, yes, 2026.
4:01 Speaker 01 2026 calendar. These are, these are ridiculous. I love it. I love it. So how's it going, boys? How's 2026? Obviously, it's very sexy.
4:11 Speaker 00 It's great. Yeah. It's, it's off to a great start. Geopolitical meltdown. Love it.
4:16 Speaker 01 Dude.
4:17 Speaker 00 Can't wait for the rest of the year.
4:19 Speaker 01 I gotta, I gotta tell you, it does, 2026 feels like 1989. And here's why. So for all you kids out there who watch strange. Stranger Things, if you're a child of the eighties, you grew up in the eighties, it feels so close, you're riding the bikes, I mean, in especially Midwest, you know, America, Stranger Things is like on point. Well, no spoilers, but in the finale, some of the kids graduate and it's 1989. And you and I, Joel, we graduated in 1989. I'm watching this.
4:52 Speaker 00 Another summer, get down.
4:54 Speaker 01 I'm watching this on TV like it's watching my own fucking graduation. It's fucking surreal. And then I'm digging into my attic, right? And I find cassette tapes. Yes, I still have some of those. And I, from the late, from the late eighties and early nineties, which literally brought back memories of my senior year of high school, driving fast, jumping in my buddy's car in the back roads of Mansfield, Ohio, while listening to Tesla and Def Leppard. And but then months later after that, driving across the bridge of Americas in Panama and Central America with a bunch of my newly formed friends, singing Youth Gone Wild from Skid Row. And then this week, this whole Venezuela thing happens and all the news outlets start talking about how this is like
5:39 Speaker 01 Operation Just Cause, which happened in December of 1989 in Panama, when we ousted Manuel Noriega. And I was fucking there, dude. But this has been the most 1989 year, other than 1989, I've ever lived in my life. It's fucking surreal.
5:58 Speaker 00 This feels like the opening to like our big booty Latina show. Panama, Venezuela. When does that tour, when does that tour start? Jeez.
6:07 Speaker 01 Oh, God.
6:08 Speaker 00 Although I think, I think we had our allies give us an okay on the Panama. I think this was a little different.
6:13 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, very much so. Yeah, let's, let's not dig into that. My God, they're so, that, that's such a fucking rabbit hole. Anyway.
6:21 Speaker 00 Well, speaking of NATO allies, Levin, Levin, what are your thoughts on the new America?
6:27 Speaker 04 You keep surprising me, I must say.
6:29 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:30 Speaker 04 Do you remember, I think, six months ago or something, you were discussing what country are they going to attack? What kind of war is America going to launch just to distract?
6:42 Speaker 01 Epstein?
6:43 Speaker 04 Yeah. And then I think Joel suggested Iran or something else, I'm not sure. I don't think we came up with Venezuela.
6:53 Speaker 01 No, I don't think we did.
6:55 Speaker 00 No.
6:55 Speaker 04 I think it was a safe bet Venezuela.
6:57 Speaker 01 I don't think we did. I think we thought that Venezuela would definitely acquiesce and do whatever the fuck we wanted them to in the first place. So there's no reason to actually go in. I digress. Enough geopolitics, Jesus Christ.
7:09 Speaker 04 But one more thing.
7:11 Speaker 00 Oh, it's a whole year of geopolitics. It's a whole year, man.
7:15 Speaker 01 We have predictions.
7:17 Speaker 00 Buckle up, man.
7:18 Speaker 04 A few months ago, when Trump was saying he wanted Greenland, we were just laughing. Yeah, of course he wants it. We're not going to sell, so no problem. But suddenly, the whole military approach doesn't seem so totally unlikely as it used to be. Just imagine if he does something like that.
7:36 Speaker 00 I think we're gonna make a deal Europe can't refuse. I think that's what's coming.
7:41 Speaker 01 I don't think so. I don't think so.
7:43 Speaker 04 I don't think we like the deal.
7:47 Speaker 00 I don't know.
7:48 Speaker 01 I don't think so.
7:50 Speaker 00 Follow the money, kids.
7:51 Speaker 01 Anyway.
7:53 Speaker 00 How were the holidays, everybody? Good? What Swiss mountain ridge did Levin ski behind? Or what Icelandic hot springs did he relax in over the holidays?
8:06 Speaker 04 Nothing yet. We're going skiing within two weeks. With House of HR, by the way. We're just taking some colleagues, yeah.
8:14 Speaker 01 Very nice.
8:15 Speaker 04 But, you know, this holidays, Christmas, is something we spend at home mostly.
8:20 Speaker 01 So did we ever figure out what happened in Switzerland, in the Alps, with the ski resort that burned down?
8:27 Speaker 04 That's terrible. Did it make the American news? Yeah, probably, I guess so.
8:30 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
8:31 Speaker 04 Forty young people died. It was awful. People between 14 and 17, 18 years old, mostly.
8:39 Speaker 04 Wow, wow.
8:40 Speaker 01 And just because of
8:41 Speaker 00 If we, if we don't think social media is a problem, like everyone filming the fire as they're getting like, I saw, I don't mean to laugh, but like, there was a, there was a cartoon I saw with the Titanic sinking and all the people in the ocean with phones watching the Titanic, like filming the Titanic sink. I just, we've lost our minds.
9:03 Speaker 04 It's something like that.
9:03 Speaker 00 As a species.
9:04 Speaker 04 But those people didn't realize how bad it was. It was just like a strip of foam on the ceiling catching fire and it was spreading a bit. So people were, didn't realize how fast it would go wrong, but.
9:15 Speaker 01 Amazing. It's unfortunate, unfortunate and wow, that's horrible anyway.
9:22 Speaker 00 Yeah. Chad's coming to the continent permanently, leaving. Are you guys prepared for that?
9:26 Speaker 01 Lucky bastard.
9:27 Speaker 04 Feeling safer, feeling safer already.
9:30 Speaker 00 Speaking of dumpster fires, Chad's coming to town, everybody.
9:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. Here at the Chad G's podcast, one thing that we love is obviously you watching, but also like and subscribe.
9:45 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
9:46 Speaker 00 It's gonna be a long year. It's gonna be a long year. I feel like.
9:49 Speaker 01 Oh, it's gonna be a great year, my friend.
9:50 Speaker 00 Already. Should we talk about freestyle? Maybe that'll make me feel a little bit better.
9:54 Speaker 01 Makes me feel better. I like freestyle.
9:56 Speaker 05 Hi, everybody. It's me, Stephen McGrath, and I'm here to tell you all about how you can grab some free stuff from ChadCheese.com. Now, you might be wondering why I'm sitting here topless.
10:06 Speaker 01 I am.
10:07 Speaker 05 And the answer is really simple, because I've not grabbed my free T-shirt from Aaron at ChadCheese.com yet. Let me fix that.
10:16 Speaker 05 Right. That's better. So I'm sporting a slightly vintage model here, but of course there are new and updated designs every year. And those are super soft, breathable, and some might even say huggable.
10:29 Speaker 00 I would.
10:30 Speaker 05 Now, what else can you get? Of course, you can get some craft beer. It's not just any regular rubbish beer. That's craft beer. Brought to you by the data geeks at Aspen Tech Labs. If you're not into beer too much, then. Oh, two seconds. Just go and get that.
10:49 Speaker 05 Then of course you can always go for chicken cock, baby. Two bottles of chicken cock from the good old people at Van Hat. Now, you're not going to get any of this stuff unless you go to ChadCheese.com/free and try and get yours today.
11:06 Speaker 00 Speaking of invasions, the Scots are coming to America for the World Cup.
11:11 Speaker 05 Welcome to All Things Scottish. Our slogan is, if it's not Scottish, it's crap!
11:15 Speaker 00 I don't think we have a choice. I don't think we have a choice. I hope the bars in New York and Boston and elsewhere are prepared for the Scottish invasion.
11:25 Speaker 01 Going to Braveheart their ways in, okay.
11:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. By the way, soccer overtook baseball in America as in popularity, which I found interesting. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me as a parent of young kids because soccer's hot.
11:41 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, and soccer is hot in the US, European football. Mainly CTE has done that for, for, for most of the population. They don't want their kids' heads bashed in, they don't want brain damage. So what do they do? Go play, go play soccer. Go, go play American football, right?
12:01 Speaker 00 And the uniforms are way, the way cooler uniforms too. I mean, come on, let's be honest, baseball uniforms are not very sexy at all. Not nearly as sexy as American football.
12:12 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:13 Speaker 00 Which brings us to the season's end of fantasy football with Chad and Cheese, sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix. Well, we have a champion, Chad. It's not you or me. It's Mackenzie Mad Dog Maitland.
12:29 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:30 Speaker 00 Defeated Courtney Nappo. Nappo had only lost two games. I thought it was going to be a total steamroll in the playoffs, but Mad Dog was not to be deterred, not undaunted, not daunted, came up with the big win. So she has a championship chain coming her way soon. She should be on the lookout for that and LinkedIn should be warned that that picture is coming as always. I love our fantasy football seasons. I hope Factory Fix comes back for another season next year and I don't know, maybe Leven will put his hat in the, in the name in the hat to play next year. I don't know. Are you a big NFL fan, Leven? Watch a lot of, a lot of Patriots and Bills games?
13:15 Speaker 04 I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
13:18 Speaker 01 Yeah. Steven McGrath, who, who really represented well this year.
13:25 Speaker 00 Okay.
13:25 Speaker 01 He did a very good job. He, I, I beat him in the playoffs, but he finished sixth. So he was, we have 12 teams. He finished sixth. He did a really, really good job. And, and it was funny because we've been chatting the entire season over WhatsApp. And he's really, I don't want to say he's gotten addicted, but he loves NFL football now. He actually bought a Bills coat.
13:50 Speaker 01 I think it was like this week. So anyway, that must be his new, his new, his new, uh, his new uh, team. Yes.
13:57 Speaker 00 I mean, look, it was, it was, it was, it was a historic season with our first female winner.
14:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:04 Speaker 00 Steven finished higher than any other international player. And we had our first winless player.
14:13 Speaker 00 Jeremy, no wins whatsoever.
14:14 Speaker 01 Come on, Jeremy.
14:15 Speaker 00 There were, there were a lot of firsts, but a lot of embarrassing moments. Uh, and that was at the top of the list.
14:20 Speaker 04 It would be, it would be a very interesting experiment to let me participate and see how much luck could, uh, could bring me because I have no idea what this is about. I've never seen a game in my life. I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure I can beat you using AI.
14:36 Speaker 00 You, you almost have to try to lose every fricking game and have a roster, have a full roster. Now you can empty the, empty the team, but if you have actual players, it's pretty tough. But Jeremy, damn it, you did it. You did it, buddy. You did it.
14:52 Speaker 01 Congrats.
14:54 Speaker 00 You did it. All right. Let's get to, uh, oh man, this is our most popular show of the year. This is our, uh,
15:02 Speaker 01 Everybody loves predictions.
15:03 Speaker 00 This is our shout out, or this is our prediction.
15:09 Speaker 00 In lieu of topics, I guess we're gonna review our 2025.
15:13 Speaker 01 Yes.
15:13 Speaker 00 Home run, uh, list of, of predictions. That we, that we had.
15:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. So the very first one, the very first one is somber because one of, one of the, the, the biggest fans of the show,
15:29 Speaker 01 Matt Lavery was the, our very first prediction. Um, for all the fans that are out there, Matt, um, actually, uh, he passed away earlier, uh, last year. And, uh, we missed the hell out of him, but we, we still, he still carries on with the Chad and Cheese tradition. Um, his.
15:46 Speaker 00 I'm rooting for the Bears this weekend in, in honor of Matt Lavery.
15:50 Speaker 01 Matt, yes. Um, so his, his prediction was companies hiring in the hourly and entry level areas will feel pain in 2025 and feeling pain means there's not enough people to fill the roles, especially with the current administration stance on immigration, which, which seemed, and it sounded smart, but even an industry genius like Matt, God rest his soul, couldn't foretell the shitstorm that was happening in 2025. Uh, there was an entry level problem, but it wasn't on the, uh, supply side.
16:29 Speaker 01 So this from CNBC, quote, "Some 76% of employers reported hiring the same amount or fewer entry level employees in 2025 than in 2024, according to the, uh, Cengage report. Their reasoning for less robust hiring were due to a tightening labor market, the rise of AI and a broader economic pressure like inflation and new tariff policies. Uh, so yes, it wasn't just immigration. It was so many different daggers that were actually thrown into the economic system. Unfortunately, uh, that was a no-go on Matt. So he got, he got it wrong because he didn't foresee all the shit that was gonna happen.
17:13 Speaker 01 Top of the immigration problem.
17:17 Speaker 00 What I remember him as his Clubber Lang quote of in terms of predicting what's coming. But see, he did predict pain correctly. We were all in a lot of pain last year. What's next?
17:29 Speaker 01 He did. He did. Emmy Baradugo.
17:34 Speaker 01 You see Emmy on the show very regularly and you'll see her in 2026. She predicted that Tik Tok will not get banned in the US and she was right. She was right. So she get an applause or something? Do we have? Do we have some sound effects? What's going on?
17:52 Speaker 01 So good one. Good one. Go figure. Go figure.
17:57 Speaker 00 He's always the smartest one on the show. I'll tell you.
18:00 Speaker 01 When she's yes.
18:03 Speaker 01 Next, we had Lars Schmidt. Everybody knows Lars. His prediction was there would be a return to in person interviewing. And here's what Gemini, Google Gemini had to say, in 2025, there has been a notable recalibration toward in person interviewing, primarily in a defensive measure against candidates using AI to cheat during virtual assessments. However, companies are not moving away from automation entirely. Instead, they are adopting a hybrid model that uses AI for initial screening and in person meetings for final evaluations. So I'd say Lars got it partially right. What do you think?
18:47 Speaker 01 60% of the time, it works every time.
18:52 Speaker 01 Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? What? What's happening at House of HR? What do you guys?
18:56 Speaker 00 I mean, he was right. He was totally right in that, look, people are assholes and they're going to try to game the system and automation and AI. Like, he was totally right that more and more companies are having face to face interviews to make sure that people are human. But yeah, people aren't, there's got to be a balance of automation and humans. So like the final, like, so I don't, we haven't quite figured that out yet as an industry. But yeah, I feel like that was sort of on the border of being correct. What do you think, Leven?
19:25 Speaker 04 At House of HR, we don't really. Care about people trying to cheat their way into an application. For us, the big problem is people using AI. They tell us in perfect Dutch that they don't speak Dutch. But that's annoying when you need someone talking Dutch and they're applying, but they live in Islamabad in Pakistan or whatever. But they apply in perfect Dutch and they have seven pages of Proza. I need to check here, but he never, he's never been in Belgium. Why would he be able to speak Dutch? But you can't figure it out because it seems legit. So that's a problem. We're going to need AI to defend ourselves from their AI.
20:04 Speaker 04 Because companies like lazyapply.com, one push on a button and you apply 76 times with 76 different versions of resume. This is problematic.
20:14 Speaker 00 He's probably right. It's, it's robots interviewing robots. And the pay model, which we may get into in the show is going to be pay per hire. You don't pay for clicks. You don't pay for applicants. You'd like.
20:25 Speaker 01 It's not per hire. It's never going to be per hire. That's bullshit. I, I think
20:32 Speaker 01 it, we start talking about per hire. I mean, that's a staffing model and it's traditional and it's not evolving anything, right? It's, it's, it's not innovation. But I think it's important to understand that it's going to be really hard to paint these types of topics with such a broad brush. And it goes back to the, kind of like the conversation on culture. Do all companies have the same culture? No. Will all companies move away from the scale of automation back to in-person, you know, interviewing? No, especially when companies like Zoom, who have a 55% market share in video conferencing, buy a company like Bright Hire, that will make it easier for all companies, especially SMBs to use Zoom for interviews.
21:15 Speaker 01 So also to Gemini's hybrid comment, you will see so many companies on the lower level for positions, like entry level positions, it'll become more automated. And then as jobs become more complex in senior level, the hybrid model is going to come into play. So I think we've got to move away from these broad brushstrokes because we're going to be wrong every time. We've got to think about like frontline versus, you know, X, Y, and Z, different types of companies, manufacturing companies, whatnot. Yeah, yeah.
21:47 Speaker 03 Another one.
21:48 Speaker 01 So Rebecca Volpano, a listener of the show. She said that 2025 is going to be the year The robot Gemini says the robot says in 2025 companies significantly increase their automation of the hiring process while simultaneously shifting more final round evaluations to in-person meetings, which is what we said before, to combat the AI assisted cheating candidates. So she was right. That was it. That's a big applause for her.
22:22 Speaker 01 And I think it goes back to the hybridization conversation, not to mention, if you take a look at the movement of SAP picking up smart recruiters, why they do that? Why did Workday pick up Paradox? Right? Why? Why are these big systems doing that? Because there's going to be more robots in the system. I mean, that's just gonna happen. Yeah. Next, we have Sean Bear, the CEO of Fountain, who said 20%, this is a big swing. Okay.
22:54 Speaker 00 I like big swings.
22:55 Speaker 01 This is a big swing.
22:56 Speaker 00 I don't like, I don't like these gray predictions.
22:58 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. 20%, 20% of Fortune 500 companies moved to fully autonomous AI frontline hiring. Now, he was in the frontline hiring, but 20% of Fortune 500 is moving that way. Gemini says in 2025, there was no reported instance of a Fortune 500 company going fully automated. Right? So that's not the case. That's not the case. But I do think fully autonomous is it's right now it's a step too far, but I think we're going to get there.
23:29 Speaker 00 This is one of those that hasn't happened yet because Amazon basically told us we hate people and we're going full.
23:39 Speaker 01 It's gonna happen, just too early, Sean.
23:41 Speaker 00 Too early, Sean, as always. He's always, he's always ahead of the curve.
23:44 Speaker 01 Sean is ahead of the curve. He's ahead of the curve. So leaving House of HR, obviously, you guys deal with people and transactions on a daily basis.
23:56 Speaker 01 Not say you don't want to get rid of people, but you want to make it more efficient. How much how long do you think it's going to take for House of HR possibly to go fully autonomous with regard to like entry level hiring?
24:10 Speaker 04 And with fully autonomous, you mean like a single person AI driven temping agency, something like that? Fully autonomous?
24:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. Yep. Fully autonomous. And the. Person starts, right? Somebody applies, they go through the entire process, onboarded, show up on day one.
24:29 Speaker 04 Ah, I think we're already experimenting with it. This is something we're actually trying out, yeah?
24:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:37 Speaker 04 In Europe, you have European AI Act, which states that there should always be a human in the loop. I think we could automate everything from A to Z, but the main decisions have to be made by humans. So who is getting a job and who is not?
24:50 Speaker 01 Right.
24:51 Speaker 04 This has to be made by a human and you have to even argument why and why not, but all the other stuff can be automated.
25:00 Speaker 00 Leaving, we're hearing news here in the States is talking about Europe deregulating or, you know, relaxing regulations in lieu of innovation. Are you, what are your thoughts on that? Do you think Europe is going to sort of loosen up the restrictions on technology? Do you think it'll, they'll continue to, to hold down?
25:21 Speaker 04 We are loosening up already and I think that's the only good effect from Trump we are getting over here. We actually feel we need a level playing field and if we don't loosen up, we're just shoot ourselves in the foot. So, and I'm, I'm happy about that because I think we should be self-regulating. We don't need too many rules. We'll just try to figure it out how it's.
25:43 Speaker 00 You'll probably come up with a nice balance.
25:45 Speaker 04 I guess.
25:46 Speaker 00 You won't go too far one way or the other, but yeah, I, I think it probably has stifled innovation to a degree in Europe.
25:52 Speaker 04 But we'll never be as, if you can call it free, as an open market. It will still be regulated, but less strict, I hope.
26:02 Speaker 01 I, I think it's interesting because you take a look at China who was behind, um, just because they didn't have the GPUs. They couldn't process the data as fast and they cut off pretty fast. So I think, you know, this whole behind thing is more fear, uh, that the big AI companies, because they want more money, they need billions of money, they, they, they want, uh, open, they want no regulations. They want no, you know, guardrails. I think to me it's, it's total bullshit. But you know, we'll see. The story still has not, the final chapter has not been written on that.
26:37 Speaker 04 Just one stupid example, the Apple AirPods, it's called AirPods, right?
26:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:42 Speaker 00 AirPods.
26:42 Speaker 04 AirPods, yeah. And they allow for simultaneous translation, but not in Europe because of GDPR. So we're not allowed to use them, but it would be very useful in Europe because of all those languages. So that's what I mean with it's sometimes regulation is counterproductive and it stops innovation because something just is not allowed and we could use it. And this is getting better now. I think politicians are feeling we shouldn't let behind, we should follow the others. But in a more ethical way, I think sometimes.
27:17 Speaker 00 I mean, the US is going the exact opposite direction. We have the federal government saying no state regulations, no like local. I mean, it's gonna be, yeah, it's gonna be Wild West around AI and which will impact our industry. Because really the local and state have been the only sort of guardrails around AI solutions and hiring. So it could be, it could be pretty messy if states can't make any laws.
27:45 Speaker 04 That's not a prediction for 2026. It's messy.
27:48 Speaker 01 Messy. Okay, so next one, guest prediction from Tim Mihein. He's got a couple of them. They kind of, they kind of combine. Number one, we'll continue to treat our candidates like shit. And he's talking about talent acquisition professionals. And number two, talent acquisition will continue to be unqualified and unable to make business, the business case for change to the C-suite, which reflects back to number one. That's why they can't get, they can't get the money to actually get better systems to, so that the candidates feel like they're, they're actually being engaged and treated right. So that one is incredibly hard to quantify, although after the amount of seasons that we've done with the AI sessions, we're starting to see many companies.
28:33 Speaker 01 They understand that and they're starting to take small swaths out of the, out of the process and they're starting to automate that. And, and from a paradox standpoint, and also, we heard this from Smart Recruiters, Alain over at Smart Recruiters, it was scheduling, because scheduling sucks. Nobody wants to do scheduling. Nobody wants to manage scheduling for interviews. And to be able to automate that, a lot of companies did that and they saved millions of dollars. They were able to, just GM alone, they were able to take, it was over 120 people that were just scheduling and redistribute them out to the workforce to other areas. So I believe it's happening. I'm not, I'm not going to give him a, he,
29:14 Speaker 01 he lost it, he didn't lose it, or he, he got it. But I, I think, I think we're getting there.
29:19 Speaker 00 Yeah. So you get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.
29:26 Speaker 01 Good first day, Tim.
29:28 Speaker 00 The first one was Captain Obvious territory. I forget what you even said, but yeah, that's what went through.
29:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. Okay. Next one, we'll jump into this one. We've got so many, so many. JT, our friend JT O'Donnell on the show so many times. And more to come, more to come. She said, "Video replaces the resume star," pretty much. "Video replaces the resume." Gemini said, "No, video did not replace the traditional resume in 2025. While video resumes and introductions became a prominent trend, the, they function primarily as a supplement to the traditional application process rather than a replacement." I believe with automation and, and better platforms, that video will play a part, but especially in our very slow moving industry,
30:17 Speaker 01 that's not going to happen overnight. It is not.
30:21 Speaker 00 And that may be another JT's ahead of the curve on that one.
30:26 Speaker 04 To be honest, video just takes too long. If you have to watch 30 seconds of someone introducing himself, it takes far too long. I don't like videos.
30:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think from a resume standpoint, it's not going to be videos. I mean, I think videos are going to be good for possibly Interviewing, pre-screening, they're gonna be, there're gonna be reasons for them. But on the front end, there's, I mean, it makes it too slow. You're 100% right. It's just there's, there's too much friction there for a human to actually go through that process. We don't need it. But again, from a broad stroke standpoint, there might be like executive level or senior managers or something of that nature. There might be video instituted just because they want to be able to see how that person carries themselves.
31:13 Speaker 00 I agree. Videos, video's been a promise that has not happened for 25 years. We've been talking about it.
31:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the last 2025 prediction, 2025 prediction was from our friend Stephen McGrath. And he was in a shower, go figure, when he did this one.
31:33 Speaker 01 So his prediction was Copilot will be implemented into every part of your business. And that's a big no. That was a big swing. That was a big swing. We like big swings, as we'd said. And yes, co-pilots have been embraced in a very formal way, but not in all departments. And if you take a look at just the Fortune 500, for the most part, it's not been formalized in, in all departments. So that's a big no.
32:03 Speaker 04 No, I even think Copilot is losing now because they had a head start because IT trusts Microsoft. And Copilot is Microsoft, so we're going to work with Microsoft. But it just wasn't as good as the others. And now even big corporate companies are getting away from Copilot and introducing Gemini, which today is the best, I think.
32:23 Speaker 00 What do you guys use at the House of HR, Leven?
32:26 Speaker 04 We started with Copilot and I had lots of discussions with my great colleague, Wilbur, who is the CIO. And he was promoting Microsoft because he's a CIO. And I said, yeah, but, he said, Microsoft and Copilot is safe. And I said, yeah, but you're spreading false information in safe ways are the good thing? Because Copilot is hallucinating so much more. So in the end, now we got along and I think we'll, we'll try to make ChatGPT accessible to everyone. But an enterprise account on ChatGPT is bloody expensive.
32:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I mean, they've got to make up for the hundreds of billions and they're not going to do it that way. I, I think getting away from product and just saying the industry as a whole and saying large language models or, you know, assistants, let's just say virtual assistants.
33:12 Speaker 01 It obviously it's more it's it's much more pervasive and will be in 2026 than it was in 2025. There's going to be a lot of growth into it. I use a multitude of large language models in my my my daily work. Um, I see I see it happening. The big question is, will it be formalized? Because I know a lot of businesses, they don't want individuals within their their organization, just having their own individual chat GPT or using Gemini. Um, so do you do you feel like they're going to that's going to be something that is formalized? And it's part of standard operating procedure? You can't use your personal, you have to use the business large language model?
33:52 Speaker 04 Yes, and people will do whatever they want. So it's
33:59 Speaker 01 Fucking humans.
34:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:01 Speaker 01 But
34:04 Speaker 04 No, no, but I think it would be stupid to not allow people to use the best systems they have access to.
34:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:13 Speaker 04 Well, yeah.
34:14 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, they're changing so quickly. And then you see, again, OpenAI comes out and they come out on top. Next thing you see, as we were talking about China earlier, they were way behind. Next thing you know, DeepSeek explodes. Um, and now Gemini. I mean, putting a lot of money into a an OpenAI is one thing, but having a company like Google, who is already, I mean, they're self sustaining. They don't need funding from all of these other areas. I mean, I think to me, they look like the the winner in the end. But again, we'll see.
34:50 Speaker 00 I mean, let's just let's just admit the Fortune 500 are all gonna use Grok. And we just
34:58 Speaker 00 because Grok for enterprise is coming in 2026, everybody just
35:03 Speaker 01 For everybody, for everybody.
35:07 Speaker 00 Porn biker bars in every Fortune 500 business.
35:13 Speaker 00 It's commercial time.
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36:29 Speaker 00 So what are we batting like 400 at this point? 4 or 350 maybe? Or maybe a Hall of Famer in baseball?
36:35 Speaker 01 I don't think we're that good.
36:36 Speaker 00 Oh, we're not that good.
36:37 Speaker 01 I don't think we're that good.
36:38 Speaker 00 These are painful. Let's get through these reviews.
36:43 Speaker 01 Yes, well, we, that's the end of 2025. Now it's time for 2026. So let's go ahead and take a break. We'll come back.
36:49 Speaker 00 Did we talk about our, what we predicted? Did we talk about you, you and me?
36:53 Speaker 01 Oh, we didn't. Oh, shit. That's a good point. Okay. Well, this should be, this should be fairly easy. Joel, your number one.
36:58 Speaker 00 Your chat's creeping in on chat already.
37:00 Speaker 01 I'm just ready.
37:01 Speaker 00 Whatever, dude. I don't know.
37:02 Speaker 01 Where's a drink? Where's the beach?
37:06 Speaker 01 Your first was rippling IPOs.
37:14 Speaker 01 That's a no.
37:16 Speaker 00 Not a prediction, not an official, but I think Rippling or Deal this year is their year. I know that we've given a hard time to Bozo and Deal and they've gone through some shit, but like they've raised so much, they have are making so much. I think we're going to see SpaceX, Stripe, OpenAI. You're going to see a lot of IPOs, I think, this year, and it's going to be really hard for at least one of them to not say, let's just fucking, let's go, let's do this. But anyway, yes, I was wrong for sure about Rippling in 2025.
37:47 Speaker 01 I'm wondering what they do or if they even care about the damage that they've created to their brand or that has been surrounding their brand. And I am very, very astonished that there hasn't been a challenger brand pop in and literally just try to steal the show. We've seen Atlas in a couple of, a couple of, a couple of areas, but.
38:13 Speaker 00 Personio got out of the US. Personio said, we're out of here. So it must be pretty tough to make inroads. Velocity Global changed their name, which says to me that what they were doing wasn't really, wasn't really resonating with people. So yeah, I think it's, it's coming down to these two. I mean, look, if, if, if drama was a reason to not go public, a lot fewer companies would be public. Let's be honest, like it's rarely a reason not to, to cash in and get some liquidity.
38:40 Speaker 01 Crazy, frigging crazy.
38:41 Speaker 00 Crazy.
38:42 Speaker 01 My, my first of last year, we had two apiece, was European startups see massive funding.
38:52 Speaker 01 Was it the chat?
38:54 Speaker 01 And that was no, and that was no. European startups did not see an overall increase in funding in 2025 over 2024. Yeah, that's, that, that's all I gotta say. I got it wrong.
39:07 Speaker 00 Money, money in 26, you think it's gonna?
39:10 Speaker 01 No, I think 2026 is going to be worse. I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna take, I think it's gonna take another year. I mean, there's way too much chaos. There's too, too much uncertainty in the market right now for especially startups. So yeah, I mean, you're going to see some of these. The hard part is some of these VC firms, even PE.
39:29 Speaker 00 Yep.
39:30 Speaker 01 They they have all this money and they have to spend this money, right? Um, and it's already been a year of chaos and uncertainty. How long before the fucking dam breaks? So can they hang on another year and then 2027 just explodes? I don't know. What do you think, Leven? What do you see in the market?
39:49 Speaker 00 I mean, less regulation should mean maybe some more money, some more risk taking, right? Or no?
39:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, but it's the whole global climate, which isn't very good. So people are a bit anxious to spend too much. But I do see a lot of money being invested in everything concerning AI.
40:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:06 Speaker 04 But it's been like that for two, three years, I guess now.
40:10 Speaker 01 So slap AI on it, baby. You might get some cash.
40:13 Speaker 04 Always, always.
40:16 Speaker 01 Joel's number two was ZipRecruiter goes private.
40:24 Speaker 01 That's big no. So you get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.
40:29 Speaker 00 They should have.
40:31 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
40:31 Speaker 00 They should have.
40:32 Speaker 01 They still might and they still might. They still might.
40:35 Speaker 00 I got another zip. I got a zip this year again. I can't quit zip. I don't know why, but yeah, just a little teaser. Stick around. I've got I got a zip. One of my 26 involves zip, so stick around.
40:47 Speaker 01 Oh, and in my number two, even though from a hiring standpoint, I mean, we lost a million jobs just in the US alone. My whole thought process was, okay, well, that's where the trend is. That's what's going to happen. Programmatic ad spending is going to go flat in 2025. I didn't think it'd take a dip. I just thought it'd go flat. Nope, nope. The global programmatic advertising market grew from 12.33 billion in 2024 to 15.68 billion in 2025. So we still saw growth, even though the job market was was incredibly chaotic. So.
41:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, you got you got that one wrong, dude.
41:28 Speaker 01 I got it wrong. I got it wrong.
41:30 Speaker 00 How about for next year? Do you think budgets continue to increase for programmatic? Or flat or down?
41:36 Speaker 01 I do.
41:36 Speaker 00 Think higher?
41:36 Speaker 01 I think.
41:37 Speaker 00 Okay.
41:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I think and I think from the standpoint of why is that we're saying, and again, this is kind of like the the whole flexible magic of of programmatic advertising. They can charge more, right? Not to mention they've gone from CPC for the. Most part, a lot of people have started push over to CPA. I've got Von talking about CPA, you know, it's like, it's almost like the qualified side of the house plus. So they're going to find different ways, even though demand is lower, to charge more to be able to actually meet their goals. And it's in its dynamic pricing. So, you know, they could pretty much charge whatever they want.
42:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's Uber. Surge pricing, Hanja postings.
42:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, Uber, Ubering, Ubering.
42:25 Speaker 00 So we sucked as usual in our predictions for 2025. So you can stop listening now because everything that we say on 2026
42:32 Speaker 01 Don't you dare.
42:33 Speaker 00 Waste of time.
42:34 Speaker 01 Dare.
42:34 Speaker 00 Although my zipper, my zip prediction is pretty good.
42:38 Speaker 01 Okay.
42:39 Speaker 00 2026 predictions on the Chad Cheese Podcast.
42:42 Speaker 01 Here we go.
42:43 Speaker 00 Featuring Leven. Leven. Yes, in the, dude, how old European does he look? The black turtleneck, the five o'clock shadow, like just
42:54 Speaker 01 Sexy.
42:55 Speaker 00 Poster child for, for
42:56 Speaker 01 That sexy personified right there, baby.
42:59 Speaker 04 The blue circles below my eyes or how do you call it?
43:02 Speaker 00 It's very I'd say you were blushing, but the red hair hides, hides the red face. All right, we have way fewer guests this year, right, Chad? We, we
43:11 Speaker 01 Yes.
43:12 Speaker 00 A little overkill last year.
43:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, we went crazy last year. Yeah. So I, I, I tamped it down a little bit.
43:17 Speaker 00 Yep. So we have four. So, uh, our friend JT wanted to chime in. Done any further ado, here's your first prediction on the Chad and Cheese Podcast for 2026.
43:28 Speaker 06 What's up, Chad and Cheese listeners? It's JT here. So I'm going to give you my 2026 prediction in just one sentence. And that is the executives who win this year will be the ones who learn how to scale themselves using video AI. You heard me. Let me be blunt. If you are still treating video like it's some nice to have in your career as an executive, like it's optional, you are already behind because here's the reality in 2026, attention is currency and AI is the multiplier. And you need that multiplier right now, my friend. The smartest executives I know will not just post more in 2026.
44:07 Speaker 06 They will build a video system where their ideas show up everywhere without them having to be everywhere. And no, I'm not talking about you being fake. I'm talking about you being strategic. You're going to take your frameworks, your points of view, your leadership voice, and you're going to let AI help you turn all of that into content at scale. I'm talking LinkedIn clips, recruiting messages, investor updates, and even internal culture videos. All of it. Because if you don't control your narrative, someone else will. And trust me, they will not do it as well as you can. So yeah, if you're an exec and you're not leaning into video AI right now, you're basically saying, you know, I'm cool with being invisible.
44:51 Speaker 06 And if you're also thinking, JT, this sounds like a lot of work. I need you to relax because this video you're watching right now just might be AI generated.
45:00 Speaker 01 It is.
45:01 Speaker 00 Might be.
45:02 Speaker 01 Cause it was, it was fucking creepy at points.
45:06 Speaker 00 Speaking of eighties, Chad, do you remember the, uh, either V or the movie, uh, I think it was Them with Rowdy Roddy Piper?
45:13 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
45:13 Speaker 00 Where we're all surrounded by sort of, uh, you know, fake people and, uh, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and other eight, whole theme of the eighties was, uh, where it's coming to fruition.
45:23 Speaker 01 Invasion.
45:24 Speaker 00 With AI.
45:27 Speaker 00 So her prediction is basically exec, we're going to see a lot of slop from executives. If I, if I had to summarize what she just said. I don't know if that's a good thing for companies or executives.
45:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't know.
45:39 Speaker 00 But sure. I could see marketing teams getting all over it. Where, when can we, when can we expect the Rika, uh, slop machine leaving? Is that coming, coming soon? Are we going to get a lot of, a lot of Rika in our, in our TikTok feeds?
45:54 Speaker 01 She said no.
45:55 Speaker 04 She likes personal attention too much to be replaced by AI. She wants to do it herself, definitely.
46:01 Speaker 01 You be you, Rika. I love that.
46:03 Speaker 04 We do use AI for translation from videos from Rika, for example. So we use AI and it saves our time, but she's actually doing the talking herself. It's not like it's slop.
46:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, we asked her about this and here's what she said.
46:17 Speaker 03 Get off my line, you no good punk.
46:21 Speaker 01 All right, next, come on.
46:24 Speaker 00 All right, next up is our friend Emmy B, who was right in 25. Let's see how she does in 26.
46:30 Speaker 03 Hey, Chad and Cheese listeners. It's Emmy here with my 2026 recruiting prediction. And I've got to say, I'm feeling pretty confident. I mean, do you remember last year when I said Trump would have banned TikTok? Well, turns out I was right. So what am I saying for 2026? Well, I'm predicting that ghosting will become illegal. And no, I'm not talking about being ghosted after your last ten to date, even though that probably should be illegal too. I'm actually talking about candidates being ghosted after they've had an interview. So no feedback, no update, just silence being against the law. Now, I know this sounds wild, but here's the thing, it's already happening. For the 1st of January 2026, Ontario will have a new anti-ghosting law to stop organizations being
47:09 Speaker 03 so shitty to candidates. And honestly, it's about time too. Candidates deserve feedback. So what does it mean in practice? Well, it means that if you're an organization with 25 or more employees, you have to tell every single candidate who's interviewed whether they're hired, not hired, or still under consideration. And you've got 45 today to do it. Otherwise, you might be hit with a fine of up to $100,000. So I'm going to say it again. My 2026 prediction is that ghosting will be illegal, not just Ontario, but in other countries around the world too. So do you think I'm right? I guess you're going to have to keep listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Happy 2026, everyone, and here's wishing you a fabulous new year.
47:51 Speaker 01 $100,000, aka $10 US dollars.
47:58 Speaker 00 No chance that happens in the US. Zero chance. We could give a fuck about the candidates. Like, Europe, maybe. I'll let the European take it. Is this going to be illegal? Ghosting illegal in Europe?
48:11 Speaker 04 No, but it should be. She's right. It should be.
48:15 Speaker 01 Easy enough. Okay.
48:16 Speaker 00 And what should the punishment be?
48:18 Speaker 04 From a commercial point of view, it's just stupid. So you punish yourself if you ghost a candidate.
48:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, it is stupid.
48:24 Speaker 04 The punishment is a bad review on Tripadvisor. No, on TrustPilot, sorry.
48:31 Speaker 01 NPS score? Yeah, I totally get it. Totally get it.
48:34 Speaker 00 No, no, no naughtiness in Europe.
48:38 Speaker 00 I'm gonna bookmark this as a European prediction, a non-US prediction for Emmy.
48:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, why not?
48:43 Speaker 00 Let's, let's go to an American Quincy to see what our friend Quincy has in store for 2026.
48:50 Speaker 06 Hey, Chat and Cheese listeners. My prediction for 2026 is one that I think that a lot of TA leaders are actually quietly anticipating, and I'm calling it the big reckoning. And here's what I mean. So for the last couple of years, businesses have been pouring a ton of money into tech and AI specifically for recruiting. So AI for scheduling, AI for outreach, AI for sourcing.
49:14 Speaker 06 And on paper, things have gotten a lot quicker. They're more efficient now. Dashboards look great and everybody's feeling really productive. But what's happening now is that leaders are finally asking the only question that matters, which is what are we actually getting for all of this? Because, you know, hiring has not become meaningfully better. The candidate experience is still being questioned. Quality is still being dragged. And it turns out that AI and tech alone will never be able to replace the experience, discernment, and judgment of a good recruiter.
49:46 Speaker 06 At the same time, the core mandate for TA has always been very clear, which is to identify, hire, bring in the right people with the right skills at the right time to fill our open recs as quickly as possible. The problem, though, is that the skills that businesses need now are changing at a rate that's faster than external hiring alone can keep up with. So naturally then the pressure shifts internal. So how can we identify and move and skill and develop the talent that we already have within an organization? Because that's the only way that businesses will be able to continue to move forward toward their, you know, five, 10, 15-year strategies at speed. But this is where the conflict arises because internal mobility has been historically kind of co-shared.
50:31 Speaker 06 So recruiting may own some. HR may own some, you know, L and D may own some, and it all looks very collaborative. But the truth is that there has been no real ownership and accountability. And again, that is not scalable. So as we usher in 2026, this is where the reckoning happens because this model is going to break. It can't take it anymore. And we're going to move from these separate organizations into a single talent organization where the team is responsible for hiring, for movement, and for development. And the TA leaders that see this coming and act, you know, quickly and appropriately will find themselves with organizations that are much larger and frankly, much more influential than they are today.
51:13 Speaker 06 And those who don't, won't be around much longer to argue the strategy of this because they'll find themselves reorged right out of the way. You heard it here first.
51:23 Speaker 01 I agree 100%. We've been talking about this for years now. Talent acquisition, talent management, why the fuck aren't they together? It makes sense. How we quantify this is going to be a bitch, but other than that, yeah, I like it. Will it happen? We'll see.
51:40 Speaker 00 Can you summarize it for me? I kind of dozed off.
51:43 Speaker 01 I just did. Talent management, one segment. Talent acquisition, two segments. A lot of times, they don't, they over, they cross, they don't cross, there are gaps. If there was one talent function that owned all of it, that's it. So I mean, she's literally saying that we finally merge these two organizations, talent management and talent acquisition into just a one talent. And that's what we should have been doing for fucking years.
52:12 Speaker 00 Quincy is so cerebral.
52:14 Speaker 03 I'm the best there is. Plain and simple.
52:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, she's way too smart for this show.
52:18 Speaker 01 VP of Talent Transformation at Corn Fairy.
52:22 Speaker 00 Corn Fairy, yeah. That's why she works at a big company like Corn Fairy. And I'm here in my mom's basement, recording a podcast.
52:31 Speaker 00 Next, who's next? Which brings us to our final guest, aside from Leven, who is a guest, uh, guest prediction from our friend Jason Putnam.
52:43 Speaker 03 Hey Joel, hey Chad, our Chad and Cheese friends. Was asked to do some 2026 predictions, so I'm going to kick us off now. AI is a big deal. So almost everyone in HR tech is talking about AI. What do we hear? How it's going to change recruiting? How it's going to change management? How it's going to change the way we lead? It's going to change the world of work. In fact, they may be right, but a little bit, I think we're talking to ourselves sometimes because if we look outside of HR tech, for example, if you look according to Gardner, only one in five AI initiatives delivers real ROI and just one in 50 delivers disruptive value. So let's ask ourselves why?
53:26 Speaker 03 Because we're not redesigning work. We're bolting AI onto work and we're not actually fixing work. We're creating more noise in an already very noisy, noisy world. Meanwhile, if we look at things from a more global perspective, culture is moving in the opposite direction. Gary Vee talks about businesses built around something as simple as human connection. Because people, all of us, were desperate for it. He's also pointing out that Gen Alpha, they're starting to unplug. Less screen time, more real life. So here's my prediction. As AI accelerates, authenticity is going to become the real currency.
54:11 Speaker 03 Face-to-face conversations, being present, sharing real opinions, showing the wins and, and living in the losses together. The future of HR tech and the future of work isn't shinier, it's just going to be more human. Have a great 2026.
54:30 Speaker 04 So I think it means our AI has to be more authentic.
54:35 Speaker 00 That's exactly right. Our AI needs to be more human. We need to watch an AI video of JT and not know if it's really JT, or yeah, which is, which is probably coming. It's probably coming. I agree, there's a need to feel more authentic. Yes. We mentioned shows that we were watching. I'm watching Pluribus, which I know is a popular show, but I have a theory that the show is about AI and that I won't ruin the show, but there's a scene where the main character is left alone for a period of time. And when she finally gets to reconnect with a human being, it's obvious how much she has missed a human connection. So anyway, watch it. I won't ruin it for anybody, but I do agree.
55:20 Speaker 00 If my kids are unplugging, I don't see it. They're still on their phones all the time. They've totally embraced all of it and it's part of their, I think their, their ethos. But, uh, all right, we'll see. We'll see, Jason. And that is the end of our guest predictions. Chad, it's time for you, me and Leaven to drop some predictions on 2026. Are you ready? Oh, yeah.
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56:13 Speaker 00 Leaven, are you ready? Totally. All right, I'm gonna go first.
56:19 Speaker 00 And I like these concrete predictions. You're the right or wrong. There's no gray area. Here, here, here it is. Okay. Indeed, Indeed made a big swing this year about basically wanting to own the whole damn thing. The whole like application process, owning all that. The problem they have is the disposition data to finally like getting their hooks into ATSs and into the process. So my first prediction for 2026 is that Indeed. We'll start acquiring ATSs. They're just going to go right to the tree, buy the house, and start getting all that disposition data without sort of an okay. And they're going to sell it to people that are already using these ATSs as an add-on, as a feature benefit,
57:01 Speaker 00 as something that's good. And 80% of them will probably just nod and say, cool, that sounds awesome. I think most likely, Indeed makes a call to K1, and they say, hey, K1, how much to let go of Job by Jazz, etc.? And K1 will be more than happy because they're not going public anytime soon to say, we will sell it all for the low, low price of whatever, and Indeed will pay it. And they may actually buy another one. They may call up Vista and say, hey, Vista, how much for ISAMs? And then that portfolio. And Vista will say, well, for the low, low price of X, Indeed, you can have ISAMs. So they will at least buy one ATS of note. Could be Greenhouse. I think Ashby is probably in play. Ashby would
57:45 Speaker 00 be a big one if Indeed could get into there. But my prediction is, to get into that disposition data, to really make sure that Indeed's business for the long term is successful, they need that data. And they will just say, fuck it, let's write checks and buy ATSs.
58:02 Speaker 01 It'll be the fastest way to litigation that they will ever find. Not to mention rats leaving the boat. I can't imagine all the companies that are like, nope, go into another ATS right now.
58:15 Speaker 00 20%. Well, I think 80% will just be like, whatever. Okay.
58:19 Speaker 04 Problem is, it's not that easy to switch from ATS. It's connected to all those systems that take so much time and effort. So they might even succeed.
58:27 Speaker 01 What they could prospectively bargain on. That's a good move.
58:32 Speaker 00 That's a good one, right? That's a good one to start, right?
58:35 Speaker 01 Very good.
58:35 Speaker 00 And I'm either right or wrong on that one.
58:37 Speaker 04 No gray zone, Indeed. No gray zone.
58:40 Speaker 00 Indeed buys an ATS.
58:42 Speaker 01 And I've, I've got, I've got my first one, um, which I'm entitling, there will be blood, AKA massive agency consolidation. Uh, you might be asking how, especially when we just heard the global programmatic advertising market grew from a 12.3 billion in 2024 to 15.6 in, uh, 2025 and is estimated to continue growing. So how in the hell is that going to happen, Chad? Why are these agencies going to die? Here's how. Indeed's pressure and commission restructuring for recruitment marketing agencies will put large groups,
59:21 Speaker 01 mainly small ad agencies, out of business. The agencies who have been depending on Indeed's partnership revenues will then be betrayed by the reorganization of commissions, paying in some instances on quote unquote, only new business, uh, setting unrealistic goals to have their privilege of receiving commissions, instituting clawbacks, plus basically just lowering commission rates, rates, which have already started to put these agencies in a tailspin. Last but not least, Indeed is already targeting ad agency client, clients for direct
1:00:00 Speaker 01 takeover. So Indeed is drinking your fucking milkshake. Now, larger agencies who have diversified offerings will be able to recalibrate and weather the storm, but there are many other agencies who have not had, they, they've not heeded history's Trojan horse lessons and went all in on Indeed. There will be layoffs, there will be acquisitions, and there will be closures, but most will be closures as Indeed can just wait and collect smaller agency client portfolios as the doors close. In my honest opinion, that's Indeed's plan. Apply pressure in an un-uniformed fashion, different rules for different agencies, then wait for closures
1:00:45 Speaker 01 and scoop them up. Scoop those clients up, right? My first prediction for 2026, there will be massive amounts of agency blood spilled in 2026 by Indeed's hand.
1:01:01 Speaker 00 So not acquiring agencies, which could be also, they just wanna pick, they just wanna scoop up the There's no reason to acquire them. The remains of those businesses. Okay. Yeah. All right, we're coming in hot for 2026, kids. All right, we are here with our 2026 predictions. Let's go to our friend in Europe. The muscles around Brussels, leaving.
1:01:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, it is I.
1:01:28 Speaker 04 If you ask me, as you did, so I'm gonna tell, 2026 will be the year where AI is going to be coming for blue collar jobs. And spoiler, I already won because, and I swear, I prepared this before, but yesterday, what I was going to predict has already been launched, and it was 2026 who I won. But I'm going to tell it anyway for those people who missed it. So until now, AI has been killing mostly creative jobs, it has been killing white collar jobs since 2022. Translator jobs are gone, and copyrighting jobs are gone, etc. But now we're getting physical AI, meaning you get AI with large language model capabilities in a physical environment and a humanoid robot.
1:02:09 Speaker 04 And this is actually something, in my opinion, almost dangerous, because robots have been around since the 1950s. And they've been, they had to be programmed to do a very specific job. And they only made sense for very big production companies, because it was expensive to program them. It was very difficult to reprogram them, so you had to have a lot, a lot, a lot of turnover. But now you have those humanoid robots, which have the dexterity and the mobility of a human. They have the power and the endurance of a machine. And they have the knowledge and the unlimited learning capabilities of a large language model. You put this in one very mobile bots, which can do basically anything. And you can talk to the robot, you can give it an order by using plain English.
1:02:53 Speaker 04 So they always say, English is going to be the most used programming language in the world. It's already happening. So you can just say to a robot, hey, robot number one, go check if the truck has arrived yet. And if it did, get your colleague robots and empty it. And put everything that's cold in the fridge and the other stuff, put it on the shelves. And the robot will know what you mean and it will do it. So this actually is happening right now and I'm sure you've all seen it's the Boston Dynamic launch with Gemini. And in collaboration of Hyundai, they are going to produce 30,000 robots, which will be multifunctional and they're going to replace humans for all kinds of blue collar jobs, but not pre-programmed, just flexible. Some robot is sitting there, you can ask it to do something, it will do it.
1:03:38 Speaker 04 And this reminds me of back in the days when in Western Europe, industry was getting replaced to Eastern Europe because the labor cost in Western Europe was too high. So all those companies shut down and they reopened in Eastern Europe and then there it became too expensive and they went to India, et cetera. Yeah. Now this is going to happen with robots because robots are basically very, very cheap. Once you bought them and they will be costing between 30,000 and 100,000 euros for, for robots, that's not a lot. And they work 24/7, that's a problem. So I say 2026 will probably be bloods and blue collar jobs and this is going to be a start, but then we'll see it happening all over the place. Now it's just the launching year.
1:04:22 Speaker 04 I'm very, very pessimistic about this whole thing, but we'll see if I'm right.
1:04:27 Speaker 05 Oh, your arse is at the Wendy, boys.
1:04:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, personally, I'm going to buy stock in Boston Dynamics. After watching Atlas and knowing that Hyundai literally bought all of the robots that they're going to produce this year, not to mention the military applications, that's where shit goes fucking off the rails. It goes off the rails, man. So in, in the thing that really was crazy, I'm going to go back to Stranger Things, the demogorgons have this hive mind thing where they can see what all the other ones have. These guys can too, right? So you, it's literally they're all networked together and they know what the other one's doing and they're learning from each other. It is fucking scary, dude.
1:05:13 Speaker 04 Just, just through wifi. It's like, it's like, like telepathy, but it's wifi. I do something, I learn something, all the others know about it and they can do the same thing. It's amazing.
1:05:24 Speaker 01 Well, and from a military application standpoint, you send one robot out to do recon. You've got hundreds that can see exactly what's happening through that. Let's say the little dog robot or something like that, something small. And you've got all these other bigger robots that literally can just descend on wherever the enemy's at.
1:05:42 Speaker 04 Those little drones can just do the reckoning and all the others see it and know it and can react. And it's agent, so they can, they have a certain goal and they can decide for themselves how to reach it. So they can do several things, a chain of actions to get to a goal.
1:05:58 Speaker 01 Crazy.
1:05:59 Speaker 00 For the record, I call robot one Francesca.
1:06:04 Speaker 00 I think you have to have that personal, personal touch with the robot. So, so a little, we've been talking about self-driving cars for a long time. We've been talking about a lot of, a lot of robotics forever. iRobot, who sweeps my floor at home here, just filed bankruptcy and sold to a Chinese company. So there's, there's been a lot of talk about robotics. On the employee side, Amazon is showing you the future. Amazon is just showing you the future of what's going on with that. So I agree, but yeah, robotics, it'll be interesting. But yeah, we, remember the robot, the Russia robot we made fun of a few weeks ago, Chad? I mean, so not, not all robots are created, created equal, I'm afraid, I'm afraid.
1:06:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:50 Speaker 00 Interesting. Is there, is there a specific prediction they're leaving? Like a number or X amount of company? Like, was there a specific, other than just like, robots are going to be a thing?
1:07:03 Speaker 04 No, I kind of prefer the gray zones.
1:07:05 Speaker 00 Okay, you like the gray zone, you like the gray zone.
1:07:07 Speaker 01 It doesn't matter, he's already.
1:07:09 Speaker 00 That's nothing for me.
1:07:10 Speaker 01 He's already claimed victory, Joel. It doesn't matter.
1:07:15 Speaker 04 I know, I know, it's my safe bet. But I'll, I'll give you another one, just one sentence.
1:07:19 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:07:19 Speaker 04 I say, we'll see the first job advertisements, paid job advertisements and large language models. And I think Chichibidi will be the first.
1:07:28 Speaker 04 So like Google AdWords, but in ChatGPT.
1:07:30 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:07:31 Speaker 04 For Joke specifically.
1:07:32 Speaker 01 Okay, interesting.
1:07:33 Speaker 04 2026.
1:07:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, that does, that makes sense. It starts taking over search. So if you take a look at not like ChatGPT, but take a look at Gemini, where I think this actually has better application. It's much faster because there's already a search engine that's there. People are using the search engine. They start to adopt, which they have, the AI models and providing AI results. So I, yeah, I think you're right. I think this happens on the Gemini side before it does anywhere else.
1:08:01 Speaker 04 We'll see.
1:08:03 Speaker 01 My turn.
1:08:04 Speaker 00 I'm gonna come.
1:08:06 Speaker 01 My second and last, and we're gonna talk about ISIMs again. I love it.
1:08:11 Speaker 00 Oh, didn't have that one on my bingo card.
1:08:14 Speaker 01 ISIMs acquires either Veritone Hire or Vonk. So as ISIM sees Paradox go to Workday, Smart Recruiters go to SAP. They see two major potential. They see two major potential acquirers go off the chessboard. Why? AI and automation. ISIMs is going to have to do something dramatic. And here are two reasons they acquire either Veritone Hire or Vonk. Number one, AI, go figure. Smart Recruiters pivoted to an AI footing in early 2025, and they were acquired by SAP around six months later.
1:08:57 Speaker 01 Did Smart Recruiters have a fully enabled AI in their platform upon the acquisition talks? No, but SAP saw a more nimble player that could pretty much be their AI recruiting skunkworks inside of SAP. ISIMs buying Veritone Hire or Vonk signals to the world they are seriously embracing AI. Point number two.
1:09:23 Speaker 01 Getting a taste of that sweet, sweet advertising revenue. Most ATS platforms don't get a taste of recruitment marketing money, AKA programmatic revenues. Remember, that is a market approaching $16 billion just last year. ISIMs opening their TAM to a very relevant and extremely profitable segment of the market just makes sense. So both Veritone Hire and Vonk are programmatic advertising platforms in the easiest path to new revenues for greater TAM. So for those two reasons, they will create a better footing to move ISIMs toward either IPO
1:10:05 Speaker 01 or make themselves more desirable to a possible acquirer in late 2026 or 2027. I believe Veritone Hire or Vonk is well positioned for acquisition and ISIMs should do that.
1:10:22 Speaker 00 Wow. I don't know where to begin on that one. I mean, ISIMs acquiring a private or public company in Veritone would be interesting.
1:10:34 Speaker 01 Well, just Veritone Hire. They can actually, yes, just Veritone Hire.
1:10:38 Speaker 00 So would that be good for the stock? I don't know. Cause they've, they've sort of put a lot of eggs in that basket. I'm no analyst on Veritone, but that would, that would be interesting. I would, I mean, ISIMs being the acquirer is very interesting. If we asked you like what, what ATS is most likely to do something big, I'm not sure ISIMs would be on the list, but it's a prediction. It's a prediction. It's very exact. You're the right or wrong. It's black and white. I like it. I like it. I don't think you're right, but I like it. I like it.
1:11:17 Speaker 01 Come on, ISIMs.
1:11:20 Speaker 00 Crazy pills. I think both of us like feel we like ISAMs we have for a long time like we hope they get their shit together, whether it's a big swing in an acquisition or not. But um, yeah, I think it's more likely indeed comes to town and uh, and buys ISAMs as my, my first prediction um, outlined. All right, I guess this is it. This is the show. This is my, I'm on the last one here. Okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go a little bit off the rails. Hope that's okay. Um, and I mentioned ZipRecruiter. Here's my ZipRecruiter prediction. I just can't quit Zip. I can't quit Zip. ZipRecruiter, the stock, currently around $3.50 in case you
1:12:00 Speaker 00 aren't tracking that. Uh, also down about 50% over the last 12 months. ZipRecruiter hits $10 a share in 2026. Why, you ask? Yes. Not, not because of fundamentals, not because hiring jacks up, uh, not because Chad buys a million shares of Teldar paper, um, and gets the stock back on track. I think it is going to be a meme stock in 2026, similar to GameStop, AMC, Open Door. I think Zip is primed to be a meme stock in 2026. It's a well-known brand, especially here in the US. There are very few retail investors that own ZipRecruiter
1:12:45 Speaker 00 stock, so it's primed to be disrupted by a lot of retail investors on Reddit or wherever. I think that someone targets Zip and this baby flies because it's a meme stock, not because of anything that's going on with the business, but I think it hits $10 a share next year, most prominently because it is the next meme stock that we're all talking about in 2026. Thoughts?
1:13:12 Speaker 01 All the way, all the way to 10. That's so pitiful, but yeah.
1:13:18 Speaker 00 Well, 350 to 10. That's, that's a pretty big jump.
1:13:21 Speaker 01 I know. I'm just thinking, I'm just thinking of launch, you know, where they came out at launch.
1:13:25 Speaker 00 And so, oh, yeah.
1:13:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:13:31 Speaker 02 You got messed up, A A Ron.
1:13:32 Speaker 01 That's, that's, that's something, that's something we can look at.
1:13:35 Speaker 00 We're leaving. You like it? I mean, one of the things, uh, our friend Toby, who's crushing it on Substack. If you're not, if you're not reading Toby Dayton stuff on Substack, like do yourself a favor.
1:13:48 Speaker 01 Diggings.
1:13:48 Speaker 00 Subscribe to that. Uh, diggings. I mean, he, he has a piece about going into 2026 and he says, if, if AI blows up and it's not a thing, we're, we're, we're in a world recession and everyone loses their jobs anyway. If AI is right, a lot of people lose their jobs anyway. So like, no matter what happens with AI, we're all kind of fucked this year.
1:14:11 Speaker 01 Those are different people. Those are different people losing their job.
1:14:17 Speaker 00 Well, yes, yes. Hopefully, hopefully podcasters are still around, but either way, he's got a great point. If AI works out, we're all, a lot of us are screwed. If AI doesn't work out, like, we're all kind of screwed in a big way.
1:14:29 Speaker 01 So we can only hope it works out.
1:14:31 Speaker 00 Yeah. And with that, happy 2026, everybody. I, I feel like a dad joke is probably the only thing, uh, that can keep us.
1:14:38 Speaker 01 Here we go.
1:14:39 Speaker 00 Keep us, keep us straight. Uh, what did the, why did the coach go to the bank? Why did the coach go to the bank?
1:14:49 Speaker 00 To get his quarterback.
1:14:54 Speaker 01 That was gonna be a Michigan coach and he was gonna be paying his players. I'm sorry.
1:14:58 Speaker 00 Yeah. Let's not get into the Browns coaching search either. That is predictions 2026. We're back for another year. Chad, we out.
1:15:07 Speaker 01 We out.
1:15:08 Speaker 02 We out. Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast.
1:15:14 Speaker 03 The cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com.
1:15:59 Speaker 03 Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. So weird. We out.
Previous Shredded: Hyundai, Boston Dynamics, ChatGPT, Accenture, Faculty, ZipRecruiter & More Next Human Renaissance with Jim Kukral Page updated November 11, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
