ERE Summit Brings Ford, Wells Fargo, CVS Health and Expedia to San Diego as TA Moves From AI to Execution

Juicebox joins as Gold Sponsor; John Baldino and Jackye Clayton host; Kyle Lagunas leads a new Executive Forum for senior talent acquisition leaders.

SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES, September 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Ask a room full of talent acquisition leaders what they’re doing with AI, and you’ll get plenty of answers. Ask what’s working, and the conversation gets a lot more interesting. That’s the conversation ERE is bringing to San Diego this November.

The ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit, taking place November 10-11, will bring together the people leading recruiting at Ford Motor Company, Wells Fargo, CVS Health, Expedia Group, Pinterest, Roblox, Thales, General Atomics, ChenMed, Tricentis, SafeBreach, TrueCare, and more for three days focused on what’s working, what isn’t, and what recruiting teams are doing next.

ERE Media also announced the event’s expanded sponsor lineup: Juicebox as Gold Sponsor, with Tenzo AI, Built In, AcquireROI, AppVault, Cadient, Metaview, and Braintrust AIR as Silver Sponsors.

“Nobody needs another conference session explaining that AI is going to change recruiting. Our audience is already living through it. They want to know what their peers are trying, what is working, what is failing, and what they should do next. That is the room we are building in San Diego,” said David Manaster, CEO, ERE Media

The People Running TA Are Comparing Notes

RIS opens Tuesday, November 10 with hosts John Baldino, President of Humareso, and Jackye Clayton, Founder of Who Do I Work For. From there, the agenda moves directly into the decisions recruiting teams are making now: AI implementation, operating models, employer brand, sourcing, candidate fraud, recruiting technology, and the role of human judgment.

Kyle Lagunas, Founder and Principal Analyst of Kyle & Co, opens the main program with “Motion Isn’t Momentum: Where AI Is Taking Talent Acquisition,” drawing on survey data from more than 350 senior HR and talent leaders, a benchmark of 12 AI interviewers and years of practitioner-focused analysis.

Amy Richman, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at CVS Health, follows with a session on the hard work of turning strategy into an operating model. Jeff Battinus of ChenMed will share lessons from early AI adoption in healthcare. Leaders from Pinterest, Roblox and Radiology Partners will examine employer brand in the age of AI and radical transparency.

On Wednesday, the conversation gets even more direct. Jim Shultman, VP of Global Talent Acquisition Operations at Thales, delivers the keynote “If You Don’t Change, You’ll Get Changed.” Then Melissa Thompson of Ford Motor Company, Dani Monaghan of Expedia Group, Joanna Clark of Wells Fargo, and Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads sit down for “Unfiltered: A Conversation on the Future of Talent Acquisition.”

For recruiting leaders deciding what to automate, what to keep human, what technology to buy, and what their operating model should look like next, those are not theoretical conversations.

Before RIS Opens, Kyle Lagunas Is Putting Senior TA Leaders in a Closed Room

New for 2026, ERE Media and Kyle & Co will present the RIS Executive Forum: Building Real AI Momentum in Talent Acquisition on Monday, November 9 from 1:00-5:00 p.m.

The invitation-only, half-day working session is intentionally limited to senior talent acquisition executives and will be held under Chatham House rules. Applications are reviewed to keep the room focused on leaders who own hiring strategy, technology decisions, and operational outcomes.

The Executive Forum applies Kyle & Co’s AI Momentum Model to talent acquisition for the first time. The model is grounded in research from more than 350 senior HR and talent leaders and evaluates seven momentum drivers, including AI literacy, governance, and risk orientation.

Participants will work through two questions that are becoming harder to avoid: What should AI actually own in the recruiting process? And as AI capabilities overlap across platforms, what technology should organizations keep, consolidate, or stop buying?

“AI is an accelerant, not a strategy. Point it at a broken process, and all you do is get there faster,” said Kyle Lagunas, Founder & Principal Analyst, Kyle & Co

The themes surfaced in the Forum will carry directly into Lagunas’ opening keynote the following morning. Qualified RIS attendees can apply separately for a seat in the Executive Forum.

Come for Who Is on Stage. Stay Because You Can Actually Talk to Them.

RIS 2026 is also built around something conference attendees routinely ask for and rarely get enough of: access.

After sessions, speakers will hold office hours in the RIS Ask Me Anything Lounge, giving attendees a chance to bring real problems and keep the conversation going. The agenda also includes facilitated roundtables, networking breaks, a reception, and more open time for peer conversation.

The result is a conference designed less around watching experts from the back of a ballroom and more around getting the people doing the work into the same conversations.

“Real use cases from the front lines, shared by people doing the work,” says Ed Delgado, Director of Recruiting, Salesforce, on a recent RIS event.

Why San Diego, Why Now

The recruiting industry is moving through a strange middle period. AI is no longer a future trend, but there is still little consensus about what a mature AI-enabled recruiting organization should look like.

That makes the people in the room matter.

If you are responsible for talent acquisition in 2026, there are few rooms where leaders from Ford, Wells Fargo, Expedia, CVS Health, and other major employers openly compare what they are changing inside their recruiting organizations. RIS is one of them.

Registration

ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit Fall 2026

November 9-11, 2026
Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine
3777 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA

Early-bird pricing is available through September 30. In-person registration is $1,399 for one or two attendees, with deeper team discounts available. Virtual registration is $399 for one or two attendees, with team discounts also available.

Event information and agenda: ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit

Executive Forum: RIS Executive Forum

Follow the conversation: #ThisIsRIS

About the ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit

The ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit is ERE Media’s flagship gathering for talent acquisition professionals. RIS brings together recruiting executives, practitioners, sourcing leaders, employer brand professionals, recruiting operations teams, and HR technology innovators for practitioner-led learning, candid discussion, and practical ideas to put to work.

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