AI Only Works When the Data Does with Rebecca Carr and Dan Beck, SmartRecruiters

This series was recorded live at HR Tech 2025 inside the HR Executive studios on the expo floor in partnership with the WRKdefined Podcast Network. Make sure you’re subscribed to the full series and visit HRExecutive.com for the news, analysis, and insights shaping the future of work. AI gets loud, fast, and overpromised. This conversation cuts through the noise. When the entire talent lifecycle sits on fragmented systems, AI becomes guesswork. When the data is unified, you unlock precision, prediction, and real outcomes. Rebecca and Dan lay out why SmartRecruiters and SAP SuccessFactors fit together, what Winston can actually do in the flow of work, and how the TA ecosystem changes when recruiting, HR, learning, contingent labor, and analytics all live on one plane. In this episode we speak with Rebecca Carr and Dan Beck about AI trust, cross-lifecycle data, workforce planning, agentic systems, shared incentives, and the future of TA inside the world’s largest enterprise HR suite. Key Takeaways AI is only as good as the data foundation it sits on Recruiting data alone can’t deliver lifecycle intelligence Unifying HR, learning, finance, and contingent labor unlocks new predictions Winston works because it stays in the flow of work and builds trust slowly Shared incentives between TA and TM matter more than ownership Agentic AI needs clean inputs, not shortcuts Workforce planning becomes work planning when analytics are unified Chapters 00:15 Why SAP chose SmartRecruiters 00:32 Autonomy, agents, and better data 01:04 Live from HR Tech 2025 01:22 Rebecca’s background 01:54 Dan’s background 02:36 Innovation and why the partnership made sense 03:03 What brought the companies together 03:57 Why SmartRecruiters was the pick 04:21 AI’s power with end-to-end data 04:49 What the acquisition unlocks 05:11 Product and cultural alignment 05:55 Customer-obsessed DNA 06:05 Why lifecycle visibility changes everything 06:46 Shared incentives across TA and TM 07:16 Early integration conversations 07:31 Workforce planning meets recruiting 08:13 Data loops inside SAP’s platform 08:26 Building an AI-first data plane 08:58 How better data drives autonomous agents 09:15 Finance, HR, and contingent labor convergence 10:30 The extended workforce lens 11:07 Non-employee analytics and certification 12:07 Winston’s role inside SuccessFactors 12:46 Why Winston boosts engagement and data quality 13:59 How SAP plans to anchor TA around this roadmap 14:35 AI literacy and readiness across teams 15:01 Why “just automate it” doesn’t build trust 16:06 Winston’s one-job-at-a-time model 17:02 How trust becomes experimentation 17:27 Designing rollout journeys with customers 18:17 Real-world enterprise AI adoption 18:53 Why Winston accelerates AI maturity Guest Info Rebecca Carr, CEO SmartRecruiters LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccajcarr/ Dan Beck, General Manager and Chief Produc Officer, SmartRecruiters LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-beck/ Host Bob Holver, Elevate Your AiQ Podcast LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bobpulver Connect with WRKdefined Site: http://www.wrkdefined.com TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wrkdefined LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wrkdefined Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WRKdefined Twitter: https://twitter.com/WRKdefined Substack: https://wrkdefined.substack.com/