Moderna has more AI agents than it has employees in most of its departments, and someone had to figure out who's in charge of all of them.
The biotech company merged its human resources and information technology functions into a single department led by Tracey Franklin, who now holds the title of Chief People and Digital Technology Officer. Franklin joined Moderna in 2019 when the company had about 800 employees. Today it has roughly 5,000 people and more than 3,000 custom GPT-based AI assistants running across research, manufacturing, legal, commercial and HR. That means the AI population is about 60% the size of the human workforce, and it was growing fast enough that running the two groups out of separate departments stopped making sense.
"The traditional model that separates talent from technology is increasingly outdated," Franklin told UNLEASH. "We're shifting from a people-only lens to a systems view... increasingly, that system includes both humans and AI agents, working side-by-side in ways that are complex and constantly evolving."
The logic behind the merger comes down to a pretty simple question. When a team needs to get something done, does the work go to a person or to an AI agent? At most companies, those decisions get made in two completely different rooms. HR handles headcount and hiring. IT handles tools and automation. Nobody is looking at the full picture of how work actually flows. Franklin's argument is that by combining the two, Moderna can do what she calls "work planning" instead of keeping workforce planning and technology planning in their own silos. So when a new project comes up, her team starts by asking what needs to get done and then figures out whether a human, an AI agent, or some combination handles it.
One of the concrete examples Franklin pointed to is an internal system that automatically routes employee questions to the right GPT or human resource, cutting wait times and improving response quality. It sounds small, but it only works if the people managing the AI tools and the people managing the human support staff are on the same team making the same decisions.
Not everyone thinks this is the right move. Linda Brenner of Talent Growth Advisors pointed out that by putting the former HR leader in charge of the combined department, Moderna potentially disenfranchises an entire team of IT experts who now report to someone with no background in technology. Jim Woods of Seattle Consulting Group was even more blunt, arguing that Moderna "didn't elevate HR" but rather "absorbed it" into a technology function. And Dr. Ken Knapton, an IDC adjunct research advisor and former CIO, told CIO.com that for most organizations, the future isn't merging these departments but aligning them, because most CHROs don't have the technical depth to lead IT and most CIOs aren't equipped to run talent development at scale.
Franklin herself acknowledged the limits. "It's not a one-size-fits-all solution," she said, adding that Moderna is "still early in this journey and learning every day."
Moderna isn't the only company redrawing the org chart around AI. Walmart, which employs approximately 2.1 million people and did $713.2 billion in revenue last fiscal year, is guiding for 3.5% to 4.5% net sales growth in FY27 while operating income grows even faster at 6% to 8%. The company saved roughly 4 million developer hours last year through AI coding tools alone. JPMorgan Chase took a different approach, elevating its chief data and analytics officer to the operating committee, putting AI governance at the same level as the CIO and the head of HR. Three companies, three architectures, same basic realization that the org chart built for an all-human workforce starts breaking when the AI headcount gets big enough.
The critics have a point about Moderna's merger being situational. Most companies don't have a CHRO who also happens to understand AI infrastructure, and most CIOs would rather not sit through talent development meetings. But the underlying question Franklin is trying to answer is one that every company with serious AI adoption is going to face eventually, which is who decides whether the next piece of work goes to a person or a machine. Right now at most organizations, that call gets made informally by whoever happens to be closest to the problem. Moderna is betting that formalizing it under one leader produces better outcomes. The real test won't be whether the merged department looks elegant on a slide. It'll be whether Moderna's 3,000 AI agents are actually doing work that would have required hiring 3,000 more people, or whether they're just an expensive way to route employee questions to the right FAQ page.
