AI has the potential to reimagine performance management, but only if it makes the experience simpler for employees and managers. That was his clear message. Bruce Walcroft, Director of Solutions Engineering, BetterworksSpeaking with UC Today at HR Tech Europe 2026.
UC Today’s HR Tech Europe hour showed that AI has been one of the dominant topics across HR conversations, with a focus on how suppliers and buyers are introducing AI into their daily workflows. But through interviews like these, one thing in particular became clear. The point is that AI alone is not enough. The real test is implementation and whether these tools remove friction or simply move complexity elsewhere.
In performance management, this distinction is important. If you add another process layer, another prompt, or another system for AI to learn from, you run the risk of becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.
Problems of performance management using AI
Walcroft’s key argument is that many organizations still expect AI to fit into the way they already work. He suggested it was a mistake.
“Enterprise vendors typically underestimate the amount of thought they have to put into what they are trying to achieve.”
This is the core reason why so many innovation projects are abandoned. Businesses often deploy old processes into new software, hoping to see better results. But as Walcroft notes, “you can’t get a different result” if the process itself doesn’t change.
This is especially true in performance management, where there are often wide gaps between strategy, goals, feedback, and reviews. Employees must define goals, managers review performance, and HR teams must coordinate the entire system. Layering AI into that structure without rethinking the workflow can make the experience more difficult to navigate.
Walcroft’s comments also point to broader market issues. Many AI innovations are primarily interface cosmetics. A product may seem smarter, but if employees still need to understand complex workflows or figure out how to use tools, adoption will be delayed.
Why complexity hinders adoption
One of the problems is that employees are often asked to use AI tools without being taught how to use them correctly. “You have to write a prompt,” says Walcroft, but for many people this is counterintuitive. This is a serious problem in performance management, where users are often not power users and are unsure of the underlying processes to begin with.
His point is that AI should reduce the burden on users, not shift it onto them. In his view, the best systems operate almost unnoticed in the background. “AI is a great label to impress people, but a better approach is to keep it simple behind the scenes, by pushing a button that does the work,” he said.
This is an important distinction for HR technology buyers. Because AI is novel, employees are unlikely to embrace it. If it helps them complete tasks faster with less effort and more confidence, they’ll accept it.
Walcroft also highlighted where AI can add practical value. This means supporting people you might not normally be familiar with, such as writing performance reviews in a second language or summarizing large amounts of feedback.
What Betterworks Should Do with AI
Betterworks’ answer is not to use AI as a standalone feature, but as an embedded co-pilot throughout the performance process. Walcroft said the company sees AI not as a complete replacement for human input, but as something that helps improve tasks users have already started.
That philosophy is revealed in the examples he presents. AI can help employees create better goals by synthesizing context from job descriptions, business strategies, proactive feedback, and completed goals. This can help managers summarize dozens of feedback points into something useful. It can also support those who are not experts in performance writing by providing structure and clarity when they need it most.
This is where the difference between novelty and practicality becomes clear. A good AI-based performance tool doesn’t just generate text. This helps align work with strategy, gives people a stronger starting point, and prevents managers from being overwhelmed with information.
This also explains why Walcroft placed such a strong emphasis on change management. Betterworks says they consider implementation to be 20% technology and 80% change management. This reflects a reality that many suppliers are overlooking. Even the best software will fail if your organization is not prepared to use it differently.
The future of performance reviews
The most powerful forward-looking message from the interview was Walcroft’s view that annual reviews in their current form are effectively dead. This is not because performance management is going away, but because AI now allows us to collect, summarize and validate performance data on an ongoing basis, all year long.
In that model, the role of managers changes. Rather than shouldering the full administrative burden of the review, the administrator acts as a verifier and guide. The heavy lifting happens over time, making the year-end review a lighter, more precise checkpoint rather than a once-a-year exercise.
This is where performance management appears to be heading in the coming years. That is, it is less temporary, more continuous, and more embedded in the workflow. But the key takeaway from Walcroft’s remarks is that technology alone cannot target an organization.
AI can transform performance management, but only if it is designed to reduce complexity, not repackage it. This is the real story.