Rethinking Hiring and Talent Strategy in the Age of AI

Dani Monaghan knows exactly what’s going on when a job candidate pauses mid-sentence before answering questions, their screen suddenly switches, or their eyes dart to the side during interviews.“There’s a lot of tells,” she said. As the SVP of global talent enablement at Expedia Group, Monaghan has learned to spot the subtle signs that someone is using AI to cheat during the hiring process. However, Expedia also wants to recruit people who are skilled, comfortable, and ethical in their use of artificial intelligence. It’s a fine line, and one that Monaghan explored in detail during a fireside chat with Rob Smith, the executive editor of Formidable, at From Day One’s Seattle conference.Preventing candidates from cheating the hiring process with AI doesn’t require banning its use. Instead, Expedia sets explicit boundaries. “We are very clear with candidates where they can use AI in a process, and where they cannot use AI in a process,” Monaghan said. “We want them to use AI. Those are the people that we want to hire, people who know AI, and are comfortable with AI, but ethical standards are equally as important to us.”Expedia uses both human observation and technology to catch dishonest candidates. Monaghan notes that the company even employs one of its vendors’ AI cheating-detection tools. The line becomes particularly delicate for roles where problem-solving with large language models is part of the candidate’s assessment. “We want them to problem solve and be able to explain to us how they solve the problem with AI, ethically and responsibly,” Monaghan said. Candidates who can articulate how they tested for bias, trained their models, and validated outcomes demonstrate the kind of AI literacy Expedia prizes. Those who try to game the system, however, reveal a character mismatch that outweighs any technical brilliance.Mapping Where AI BelongsExpedia didn’t rush to deploy AI in hiring and then figure out the ethics later. “If you just put AI on a bad process, you have a worse outcome,” Monaghan said. Instead, the talent team remapped its entire hiring journey, deciding precisely where AI excels and where humans must retain control. “We’ve built a roadmap for where we would use AI, where AI does its best work, and then where we would use humans, where we do our best work. But ultimately, the human is the final decision maker and the stamp of approval.”Dani Monaghan, SVP of global talent enablement, spoke during the fireside chat with moderator Rob Smith, executive editor at FormidableThat roadmap has already produced powerful tools. Monaghan described an AI agent that handles hiring manager intake meetings, generates job descriptions, gathers competitive intelligence, and even estimates time-to-fill, all in real time. “For those of you that are in the recruiting world, sitting in front of a hiring manager at an intake meeting and being able to talk about all of that in that same meeting, instead of going back and researching, coming back in two weeks, is a game changer,” she said. This week, the team is also rolling out an automated AI scheduling tool that promises to untangle the complexity of coordinating interviews across 70 countries and multiple languages.Getting Rid of Bias Before It BeginsAI bias is one of the most discussed risks in talent technology, and Monaghan emphasizes that Expedia approaches it with a preemptive, rather than purely reactive, strategy. “You’ve got to de-bias your training data before you actually train the model,” she said. Beyond cleaning the data, Expedia audits its models continuously and keeps a human in the loop for final decisions. All experiments happen inside walled gardens until they’re ready for production, where monitoring remains intense.This disciplined approach reflects a broader philosophy Monaghan calls “AI optimistic, but balanced by AI responsibility.” The company aims to harness AI’s speed and scale without allowing opaque algorithms to make high-stakes choices about people’s careers.The AI Knowledge GapSmith asked whether universities are preparing graduates for an AI-driven workplace. “I don’t think they’re doing that yet,” Monaghan replied. Yet the interns and young candidates she meets are remarkably AI-literate. “They are teaching themselves,” she said. Her real worry is about access. “If you’re not taught AI at school or in university, and you don’t have the means to access technology, I think the gap is bigger than it will ever be before.”Expedia has embedded AI questions into its new behavioral interview framework to address this internally. Every candidate, regardless of role, is probed on their curiosity and willingness to learn about AI. For technical positions, the company sets up live scenarios with language models and watches how candidates think, test, and explain their solutions. AI as a Travel Companion, Not a ThreatShifting from talent to the core business, Smith asked whether generative AI tools like ChatGPT threaten Expedia’s relevance as a trip-planning platform. Monaghan acknowledged that the leadership team obsesses over the question, but she sees durable advantages in the marketplace model. “They have access to incredible deals and bundles and supply and data,” she said. They have payment processing, very sophisticated, multilingual, multi-country payment processing systems. They have fraud detection systems. They have customer support. I think that will be hard to replace.”The battleground, she said, is the top of the funnel, the inspiration and planning phase. “Rather than going to ChatGPT or one of the other models to plan it for you, go to Expedia, and our AI needs to be as good or better.” The endgame is AI-fueled personalization that uses Expedia’s vast customer data to craft trips so uniquely tailored that travelers won’t want to go anywhere else. “That personalization can be really, really special,” Monaghan added. Optimism With GuardrailsMonaghan offered a practical path for organizations without Expedia’s scale. “You’ve got to start somewhere,” she said. Her team began with AI education, then created playbooks, and then built a governance structure. Having top-down endorsement helped: the CEO mandated that everyone become AI-literate by understanding the technology’s capabilities and limits. “You can take small steps, and you can also in your personal life, which I think everybody here had their hand up at some point, everyone is playing with AI.”Monaghan, an enthusiastic fly fisherwoman, confessed her own favorite personal use of artificial intelligence. She uses AI to determine which flies to pack for specific waters, which fish are hatching, and what she might catch. It’s a small, joyful illustration of a tool that, when deployed responsibly and with a clear governance framework, can enhance the quality of human life.Monaghan returned to the theme of dual vigilance and hope throughout the conversation. AI is advancing faster than any technology shift she has witnessed since the advent of the personal computer, the internet, and mobile. “What is possible and what is probable is boundless. What is likely is going to be bounded,” she predicted, citing constraints like governance, regulation, privacy laws, the cost of building massive data centers, and electricity. Monaghan’s final call to the audience was to leave feeling optimistic and excited about what’s ahead. “Yes, it’s scary. It’s a scary ride. I myself can see that it could be a really scary thing, but I’m just hoping people walk away feeling, ‘Actually, this is a good thing.’ It has so much potential for mankind, health care, education, space exploration, it’s just going to multiply our ability to do these things—but with the caution around responsibility, guidelines, governance and knowing where humans are still important.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)