Phenom began in 2011 with a simple question: how do you help a billion people find the right work. The US-based HR tech company found product market fit in 2015 and now has about 1,000 global customers, including more than 15% of the Fortune 500, with roughly 1,400 employees. In India, the company started expanding in the last couple of years and has a growing customer base. Phenom delivers on AI-led automation across hiring, onboarding and talent growth, tailored by geography, language and local context. Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and co-founder, Phenom, speaks to Sudhir Chowdhary on how GenAI is reshaping HR workflows, and why India remains core to the company’s global infrastructure. Excerpts:
How do you see AI transforming or potentially replacing traditional HR functions?
AI will do three things for jobs. Some jobs will enhance and evolve, some jobs vanish, and some jobs will get rebundled or created in a new format. These shifts are happening simultaneously, for instance, in HR, interview coordinators used to be a major function, we introduced our automatic scheduling product and nearly 90% of scheduling became automated. In another example, frontline hiring involves repetitive questions that are now largely handled through automation, reducing manual effort. However, the first-mile and last-mile stages still require human judgment, and roles there have evolved accordingly. For instance, Thermo Fisher also uses our automation engine to automate nearly 70% of recruiting for manufacturing roles, which account for 20% of their hiring. We see this as a system-wide reset, where productivity shifts across different parts of the process.
How does Phenom tailor its platform and solutions for the Indian market?
The same job title can correspond to different levels across geographies because India’s talent supply demand dynamics differ significantly from other markets like the US or Europe. For instance, what looks like a Level 4 software engineer role in the US can be a Level 2 role in India. Why? because basic coding is different from senior coding. As a result, our product deployment in India varies from international settings, influencing how we approach screening, retention, and employee development. I always say, just as various Gitas share the same essence but are taught from a different context for who they are and where they set. In the same way, each country, location, and individual must be understood in their own context. AI can support this understanding, not completely, but meaningfully because language is central to interpretation, even though human behavior also involves emotion and many other layers of thought.
What primary challenges HR or HRIT teams encounter when deploying AI-driven solutions?
HRIT teams face two primary challenges when deploying AI-driven solutions. First, adoption is complex because success requires alignment between HRIT, HR, and end users, often necessitating changes to existing workflows. Adoption works only if a person who is using this product has to benefit, not because some CIO said this is the only product you should use. Second, HRIT must continuously adapt and personalise the product to user needs. Traditional one-size-fits-all HR software is no longer sufficient. That is no longer the case. The product can be adopted. Software is no more just execution of tasks. It’s actually a living breathing infrastructure, which can evolve with the HR ecosystem and accommodate based on its capabilities to what it can offer. And it has to be augmented with humans in the right format.
What role does Phenom’s India presence play in driving global product innovation?
From day one, when we started the company, we had an India office. India teams have been consolidated from the beginning, and senior management and the primary core leadership sit in India as well. India contributes in two major formats, engineering and product. But there is a product specific, what we have customised to Asia markets. For that, India is the centre core hub, for sales marketing, and also the overall customer delivery.
Tell us about your future plans for expanding and strengthening your presence in India.
India has a huge potential infrastructure and will be central as the company grows. From day one, we picked three countries, India, the US, where they are headquartered and Israel. Our most important infrastructure is in India. India as of today is a growing market, with a long term growth equation for software. In the next 10 years, as the Indian economy grows, it will really multiply its software infrastructure, like growth in a much tremendous way. We call it an applied AI company, what we represent. It’s not a software per se, so that is a fundamental thesis of what we’re really doing right now.