Only 55% of HR organizations consider themselves highly effective at collaborating with IT, according to research from McLean and Company — but those that do achieve close partnership are 1.8 times more likely to excel at innovation. For HR leaders rolling out AI-enabled systems, the data points to a structural decision: whether employee experience, onboarding workflows and AI tool access should be co-owned across both functions rather than split along traditional departmental lines.

The collaboration gap carries measurable consequences. Separate research from Microsoft found that 72% of IT employees say their organization provides all or most of the AI tools they need, while only 59% of HR employees say the same — a 13-point disparity in access to tools that increasingly shape daily HR work. Meanwhile, a General Assembly study found just 30% of HR professionals receive comprehensive, job-specific AI training, and ADP's 2026 HR Trends Study reported 65% of companies face obstacles in providing skills development opportunities.

IT leaders see the value of convergence. A Nexthink survey found 93% of IT leaders believe bringing HR and IT together increases productivity and boosts employee satisfaction. Yet Steve Goldberg, an HCM analyst and former VP of HRIS at four investment banks, writes in an ADP analysis that co-sponsored strategic initiatives — such as HR technology rollouts — often proceed with unequal enthusiasm and commitment from the two functions, a pattern he has observed across four decades as a practitioner, vendor executive and analyst.

Why the AI era forces convergence

Goldberg argues hybrid and remote work has stretched IT oversight thin while pulling HR deeper into technology decisions, from device provisioning to AI access management, governance and compliance. The two functions now share joint responsibility for data privacy, protection of employee data from cyber threats, certification of critical content sources and most areas of AI-related operating risk, he writes.

The employee journey itself blurs the boundary. Employees experience onboarding, system access and workflow moments as one unified process, not as separate department responsibilities. ADP Research frames the stakes: "AI adoption involves and changes how work feels — before it results in how work gets performed."

Onboarding illustrates where the two domains intersect most visibly. Citing HR Dive research, Goldberg notes that employees with negative onboarding experiences — which span both HR workflows like benefits enrollment and IT workflows like device provisioning — seek new employment at double the rate of other employees.

Five practices for joint governance

Goldberg outlines five recommendations for HR-IT collaboration in the AI era:

1. Form a cross-functional task force. Establish joint steering committees to align mutual goals before making major technology purchases.
2. Define joint KPIs. Measure tech rollout success by both system performance (IT) and user adoption rates (HR), with joint acceptance criteria for go-live decisions.
3. Collaborate on tech talent retention. HR should have visibility into retention risks among key IT employees versed in the latest AI advances, including the use of AI to detect predictive signals.
4. Ensure seamless system integration. HR systems must communicate with the broader digital ecosystem to eliminate information silos and confusion from duplicative data.
5. Embrace ownership flexibility. As AI-driven role redesign accelerates, cultures should de-emphasize legacy ownership boundaries and discuss tradeoffs openly.

A shifted relationship

The dynamic has evolved considerably from the early-to-mid 1990s, when Goldberg says IT largely acted as gatekeeper — managing security, installations and integrations — while HR funded and tested new applications. The rise of data-driven decisions and people analytics blurred authority boundaries, as both parties built knowledge of the other's domain.

Today, with distributed global workforces and AI agent use cases proliferating faster than most predicted, Goldberg contends the employee experience framework itself should be co-owned by HR and IT. System rollouts, he argues, must align with and support the target organizational culture and employer brand rather than simply showcase AI capabilities.

For HR leaders weighing their next technology investment cycle, the McLean data suggests the first question is not which tool to buy, but whether a joint steering structure and shared KPIs exist to make the purchase succeed.