Meet the 2026 Pathfinders.
Nineteen organizations. Five categories. Two regions. These Pathfinders are the teams and leaders setting the pace for how the world hires, develops, and deploys talent with Eightfold AI.
Celebrating excellence in talent acquisition.
North America
driving talent growth
Morgan Stanley modernized its lateral recruitment process, streamlining workflows for recruiters and improving candidate experience. By implementing the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform alongside Workday, the organization is boosting efficiencies and hiring outcomes across the board.
- reduction in time to hire
- 40%
- reduction in time to fill
- 21%
- of positions calibrated for hiring and candidate experience
- 79%
hiring more high-quality talent
Albemarle rebuilt its talent acquisition strategy with the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform by combining AI Native matching, calibration, and job alerts to grow its talent network to over 270,000 candidates. This talent pool now accounts for more than a quarter of all hires.
- in agency cost savings through direct hiring
- $1.1M
- reduction in time to offer accepted
- 119 day
- of total hires generated through the Eightfold career site
- 65%
fueling a skills-based talent engine
Keurig Dr Pepper unified talent acquisition and internal mobility into a single Career Hub powered by Eightfold, integrated with Workday and iCIMS. Now recruiters have a consistent, skills-based approach to sourcing and hiring through AI Native matching, talent rediscovery, and workflow automation.
- decrease in agency spend YOY
- 50%
- candidate satisfaction rating
- 4.66/5
- below industry benchmark in average cost per hire
- 50-80%
EMEA / APAC
orchestrating an agile workforce
At ST, we are 49,000 creators and makers of semiconductor technologies mastering the semiconductor supply chain with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. An integrated device manufacturer, we work with more than 200,000 customers and thousands of partners to design and build products, solutions, and ecosystems that address their challenges and opportunities, and the need to support a more sustainable world. Further information can be found at www.st.com
Read the story- of open positions fully calibrated, with a 81.4% average completeness score
- 78.5%
- application completion rate for candidates
- 82%
- candidate NPS, with an average rating of 4.73/5
- 76
shifting to proactive hiring
International SOS supports over 9,000 organizations worldwide through a network of 29 Assistance Centres, handling approximately 4.3 million assistance calls and more than 700 medical and security evacuations each year.
- reduction in time to fill (saving ~6,460 recruiter days)
- 21%
- improvement in recruiter productivity
- 38%
- personalized career site net promoter score
- 77
breaking down talent silos
Kering used Eightfold to unite luxury brands Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and its other fashion houses under a single, skills-based talent ecosystem called “the Eightfold Way.” Recruiters have a unified view of talent across brands, turning what was once siloed, transactional hiring into cross-house talent curation and a premium candidate experience.
- of employees considered for promotion or high-potential programs now require a completed talent profile
- 100%
- Talent Card tool built at no additional implementation cost, giving hiring managers real-time, data-driven visibility into employee skills
- Increased visibility across houses, surfacing talent that was previously siloed within a single brand
Celebrating excellence in talent management.
North America
driving internal career opportunities
Salesforce built its talent management program on Eightfold to encourage career mobility and prepare its workforce for the AI-driven future. The platform surfaces relevant roles, assignments, and training so Salesforce employees can upskill, reskill, and advance directly.
- of open roles filled internally after launch (Q1 FY’26)
- 51%
- of employees have an active profile, with 84% completion rate
- 82%
- internal moves from employees finding new opportunities
- 24%
re-engineering talent architecture
GDIT used Eightfold Talent Management to rebuild its job architecture and skills taxonomy from the ground up, giving employees and managers real-time visibility into skills, career paths, and internal mobility opportunities. This move has also elevated its talent teams to become strategic drivers of the business.
- of employees fully activated, with 91% actively engaged
- 86%
- employee mobility moves annually
- ~4K
- of employees using job search capabilities for growth and mobility opportunities
- 50%
EMEA / APAC
building a cross-border talent marketplace
UNIQA used Eightfold Projects functionality to reinvent its “commUNITies,” cross-country, cross-functional capability networks, from a fragmented, manual process into an AI-driven talent marketplace. All 14 commUNITies now run as open-ended projects, giving orchestrators automated staffing, continuously updated skill profiles, and cross-border visibility that replaced reliance on personal networks.
- of commUNITies (14) fully operational, with 72% adoption within 6 months of go-live
- 100%
- reduction in manual effort for onboarding, membership, and staffing
- 70%
- employees actively involved across commUNITies
- 1K+
powering up with skills
Arcadis launched its AI Native Talent Intelligence strategy to become a skills-powered organization, embedding skills-based practices across the entire employee life cycle on a global scale. With global business leadership on the steering committee, the multiyear roadmap is focusing on career pathing, upskilling, and giving employees more control over their careers.
- of employees have activated profiles on Career Hub
- +70%
- employee profiles are complete (+10K)
- 74%
- hours of project, or “gig,” opportunities created for employees based on skills
- +10K
connecting talent to opportunities
Wipro replaced a dispersed system of career and skilling platforms with iAspire, powered by Eightfold, giving 220,000+ employees one place to manage talent profiles, visualize career paths, and close skill gaps. The platform's AI Native matching now connects the right talent to the right demand at the right time, opening up career growth across the organization.
- skills identified and updated by 200K+ employees
- 5M
- employees onboarded in under two quarters
- 220K
- internal job opportunities offered to employees since launch
- 10K+
- 5-point increase in employee experience score for access to resources and training
Celebrating organizations pioneering the future with agentic AI.
WINNER
scaling hiring with AI Interviewer
Mercado Libre implemented Eightfold AI Interviewer to run high-volume first-round phone interviews in Latin America, directly embedding it in SAP SuccessFactors and WhatsApp/SMS workflows. Treating the rollout as a controlled experiment, the team rigorously benchmarked AI interviews against human evaluations to protect quality and candidate experience while freeing recruiters for higher-value, strategic work.
- AI interviews planned annually
- 150K
- hours of recruiter time to be redirected yearly
- 75K
- candidate satisfaction rating
- 4.3/5
driving productivity in high-volume hiring
Quality Automotive Services, a Valvoline Instant Oil Change franchisee, deployed Eightfold AI Interviewer to handle initial candidate evaluations with consistent, structured logic, giving recruiters a fully evaluated talent pool to work from. By removing the need to cap first-round interviews, QAS widened its talent funnel and engaged high-volume candidate pools without adding recruiter head count.
- hires in the first 10 days on the platform
- 2
- average time to interview
- 1.2 days
- candidate satisfaction rating
- 4.4/5
boosting recruiting with agentic AI
Softtek deployed Eightfold AI Interviewer into its global recruiting model, replacing scheduling coordination and calendar friction with synced, standardized candidate evaluation. Rolled out in phases across regions, AI Interviewer freed recruiters to focus on reviewing structured evaluation data rather than managing logistics, supporting the broader goal of reducing time to fill.
- working days of recruiter capacity returned
- 26
- interviews in progress across regions at pilot stage
- 1K+
- candidate satisfaction at launch
- 4.6/5
Celebrating innovation in the public sector.
WINNER
Colorado is modernizing the statewide job exchange
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment replaced a decades-old system with Eightfold Workforce Exchange and integrated it with the state's case-management system to power “Connecting Colorado.” The platform now gives job seekers free skills-gap analysis and career planning tools while providing employers a free ATS with real-time candidate matching designed to reduce bias.
- job seekers employed, surpassing the department's yearly goal
- 2K+
- Real-time labor market insights replacing previous 6–12 month data lags
- Free ATS with live candidate matching and calibration now available to local businesses statewide
hiring globally based on skills
The British Council rolled out Eightfold Talent Acquisition in a single global go-live across 100+ countries, replacing a fragmented, manual application process with skills-first matching and automated evaluation. This has significantly reduced the administrative burden for recruiters handling high-volume roles, some with 700+ applicants each, while delivering a faster, more personalized experience for candidates and hiring managers.
- reduction in shortlisting time
- 65%+
- reduction in time to offer for teacher roles
- 28%
- average candidate NPS, with a 4.31/5 satisfaction score
- 51
bridging the talent gap with AI
The New York State Department of Labor modernized its Virtual Career Center (VCC), a fragmented workforce infrastructure, using Eightfold Workforce Exchange integrated with the state's OSOS case-management system. The platform gives New York job seekers AI-matched recommendations, lets case workers share jobs and more efficiently engage talent, and allows employers to manage their own applicant tracking directly on the platform.
- increase in jobs shared by case workers
- 144%
- increase in talent profiles viewed by employers
- 146%
- increase in unique applicants on the VCC
- 86%
Celebrating the visionary leaders.
Jessica Crews
leading Keurig Dr Pepper's talent shift
As Senior Director of Talent & Analytics at Keurig Dr Pepper, Jessica Crews led the launch of the KDP Career Hub, an AI Native, skills-based talent marketplace on Eightfold. She built the foundation for the initiative by establishing a skills-based role architecture across 1,700+ job codes, then drove adoption through phased pilots, calibration workshops, and cross-functional collaboration with HR, managers, and employees.
- of eligible employees created Career Hub profiles within 6 months
- 90%+
- of non-frontline roles filled internally in H2 2025 (vs. ~30% industry benchmark)
- 40%+
- reduction in high-performer turnover YOY
- ~5%
Cristina Anculescu
building UNIQA's skills ecosystem
As Head of Group Talent Acquisition & Development Experience at UNIQA, Cristina Anculescu led the design of a unified, group-wide job architecture and skills taxonomy, and drove the implementation of NAVI, UNIQA's Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform. Her work turned skills into the common language for careers, mobility, and workforce planning across countries, positioning UNIQA as a frontrunner in skills-based transformation within the insurance industry.
- countries live with NAVI as of January 2026, with plans to reach 10 by end of year
- 8
- commUNITies members trained, achieving 72% pilot adoption within 6 months
- 1K+
- executives and 200+ external HR pros have seen UNIQA's progress across multiple industry events
- 100+
Frequently asked questions.
The 2026 winners are Morgan Stanley (Talent Attraction, North America), STMicroelectronics (Talent Attraction, EMEA and APAC), Salesforce (Career Compass, North America), UNIQA Insurance Group (Career Compass, EMEA and APAC), Mercado Libre (AI Innovation), the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (Workforce Innovation), and Jessica Crews of Keurig Dr Pepper (Pathfinder of the Year). Every winner and finalist is featured above.
Morgan Stanley (North America) and STMicroelectronics (EMEA and APAC).
Salesforce (North America) and UNIQA Insurance Group (EMEA and APAC).
Mercado Libre.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Jessica Crews of Keurig Dr Pepper.
The Pathfinder Awards are the annual Eightfold AI recognition of the organizations and leaders using the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform to move talent forward: hiring, developing, and deploying people in new ways. Winners are recognized across five categories: Talent Attraction, Career Compass, AI Innovation, Workforce Innovation, and Pathfinder of the Year.
Each year, customers are nominated across the award categories and reviewed against the criteria for each one, from measurable outcomes to how they put the Eightfold platform to work. Winners are announced at Cultivate, the Eightfold customer event.
The Pathfinder Awards run every year, with nominations opening ahead of the next Cultivate. Watch the Pathfinder Awards page for the next cycle.
Congratulations to every 2026 Pathfinder winner and finalist.
These teams and leaders are redefining what talent can do. See their full stories, and more from Eightfold customers.