Phenom Acquires Included AI, Bringing Agentic People Analytics to Every HR Professional and Business Leader

At Phenom, we've maintained an unwavering focus on empowering HR professionals and business leaders to tackle any talent challenge with AI and automation.

People analytics is a critical, yet historically underserved capability that HR leaders need to make smarter workforce decisions. It's where raw data transforms into actionable insights — and where organizations can finally move from reactive to proactive talent strategies.

As organizations strive to become more data-driven, many struggle to consolidate data from disparate systems and quickly draw insights to inform workforce planning. The need for immediate access to deeper people data in today's volatile talent market is what led us to acquire Included, an AI-native agentic people analytics platform that surfaces actionable insights that enhance decision-making and growth.

Now with Included, Phenom provides every HR professional and business leader with a people analytics agent that enables them to quickly view data, analyze it, and take action.

The Data-to-Action Gap in HR

Every HR professional and business leader requires AI and automation that enables them to hire faster, develop better, and retain longer. Yet for too many, people analytics remains frustratingly inaccessible.

Many organizations depend on business analysts to connect the dots within and across tech stacks, while others must sort through data without dedicated resources. Either way, the people who need insights most — HR leaders and managers making daily workforce decisions — often can't access them quickly enough to act.

The gap between having data and using it effectively has held too many organizations back from building agile, future-ready teams.

Phenom + Included: A New Agentic Era of People Analytics

Founded in 2021, Included is widely recognized for its development of proprietary algorithms that address inconsistencies and gaps in people data. Coupled with an extensible canonical model and ontology, this foundation can flex to consume information from additional sources and adapt to organizational needs.

Our acquisition of Included not only complements our innovation roadmap and addresses key customer challenges, it also fortifies our vision to make workforce intelligence accessible to everyone — not only data specialists.

Natively integrated into our Applied AI platform, companies will get access to a more extensive, connected set of data. Included's agentic AI aligns with Phenom Workforce Intelligence, providing the conversational ability to dive deeper into critical growth areas and potential business risks. By engaging with the agent through simple prompts and natural language queries, users receive recommendations and plans to take action.

Now every HR professional and business leader will have a people analytics agent that enables them to quickly view data, analyze it, and take action, supported by:

Integrated, standardized data from core HR, talent acquisition, employee engagement, and performance management systems that power unified people analytics for organization-wide insights and enhanced workforce planning
Predictive intelligence backed by Phenom's extended ontology to mitigate risks, driving proactive intervention before issues escalate
Cross-functional dashboards and real-time visualizations that provide transparency and compliance-ready insights to leaders
AI-generated narratives and reporting to diagnose process bottlenecks, improve hiring velocity, optimize productivity, prevent employee burnout, and identify team skills gaps

"Many companies still struggle to get vital workforce insights to their leaders for efficient and effective talent planning," said Zachary Chertok, Senior Research Manager for HCM Applications and Agents at IDC. "People analytics provide critical support to identify these insights and integrate them into business performance management toward optimizing operational health. Phenom’s acquisition of Included offers contextualized, automated people analytics available across the organization, deepening capabilities to personalize experiences with AI for all users from executives down to line managers."

The Future of Workforce Planning with AI

With the addition of Included, we're poised to make people analytics accessible and actionable for everyone. The power of our ontologies and the flexibility of Included’s algorithms and canonical model mean contextual analysis is available faster, which can drill down from the overall company level to a specific division, department, location, or even team. No more waiting on analysts. No more disconnected data. Just the insights you need, when you need them, with clear paths to action.

We also welcome the Included team and customers to the Phenom family. Our shared focus on unifying data and improving experiences with AI aligns with our purpose to help a billion people find the right work.

Deeper people analytics and workforce planning insights are no longer optional; they're the foundation for building agile, future-ready teams. With Included, we're expanding our ability to deliver contextualized applied AI capabilities for every persona and organization from the start.

To learn more or see Phenom Applied AI and agents in action, request a demo today.

John Deal

John is a Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Phenom. He enjoys horror novels and running — mostly from age.