Maria Black, ADP President and CEO, speaks about the increasing importance of HCM expertise as AI innovation reshapes the world of work.
I would tell you that software is alive and well, especially for core function type of companies. And that's exactly where HCM fits in. Again you know the way we see it is we see the future of work as one that is AI infused and AI really powering the workforce. But that doesn't take away the need to actually manage the sheer orchestration of paying people and keeping them compliant.
And so while it's reshaping the work really at the task level, and that's the research we were doing with Stanford that we see the need to ultimately manage work is actually becoming more complex, not less complex. So I would say HCM, you know, is very different than that. And obviously the value of getting all of those things right is actually increasing. So the more complex it's becoming, the more valuable it is for us to do exactly what we're doing. You know, in line with that, it's really about having the highest levels of standards, ethics, the need for accuracy, security, and also this idea of auditability because in the in the world of HCM, be it payroll and, you know, the ecosystem that defines payroll or the rest of HR benefits and all the ecosystems and connectivity that we have to, whether it's government entities or carriers, you know, the room for error, ambiguity or just good enough like it doesn't exist.
Payroll needs to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. And so that's a big differentiator, I think specifically for HCM, which kind of leads me to, you know, I guess the last point, which is that we were kind of built for this, right? So if you think about us in the 77 years we've been doing this for our clients and navigating through economic cycles, transformation cycles, the world of work and all of this stuff is making things more complex. And we have the background, the trust, the data, the deep domain expertise in our products and services, but also the expert people to help our clients through this.
Source: ADP Third Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Call – April 29, 2026
