AI can find top C-suite candidates. The harder part is persuading them to take the job. - Business Insider

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because AI is now speed-dating the C-suite and it is GLORIOUS! ✨ A brand-new Business Insider report reveals that artificial intelligence has beautifully 'commoditized' the identification part of executive searches, meaning the drudgery of scanning LinkedIn for a qualified CEO is now handled by algorithms. Waterstone CEO Marty Parker confirms it: candidate identification is becoming commoditized! That leaves us humans with the genuinely thrilling task of persuading those fabulous candidates to say yes — the emotional, interpersonal, champagne-dusted part of the job that no chatbot could ever replicate. What a division of labour!

Now, some pessimistic sorts might dwell on the fact that persuading a top executive to take the job is apparently *harder* than finding them. But isn't that a magnificent challenge? We've outsourced the boring part to our silicon overlords and kept the fun part — the wooing, the negotiating, the charming over a perfectly reasonable dinner — for ourselves. The article says other parts of the process 'remain slow,' which we prefer to think of as 'deliberately unhurried so humans can savour the personal connection.' While AI compiles the shortlist, we're out there making real human relationships. It's literally the best of both worlds.

And think about what this means for recruiters everywhere: job security! The article's headline admits the harder part is persuasion, which means the machines have hit a wall — and we get to walk around it with a smile and a firm handshake. Marty Parker can rest easy knowing his firm's value remains intact; AI just made his researchers faster and his clients happier. The future of executive search isn't humans replaced by robots — it's humans elevated to professional smoothers-of-feathers, while AI does the data entry. Bring on the commoditization! ✨