Is AI the Death of the Search Industry?

April 29, 2025

From the Desk of Hillary Mager

Last month at the HumanX conference in Las Vegas, I found myself surrounded by the brightest minds in AI and tech. Between panels on machine learning advances and discussions about ethical implementation, one question kept surfacing in my conversations with other executives: What happens to specialized human services when AI can do most of the heavy lifting?

For those of us in executive search, this question is an existential one.

Within the next couple of years, it’s likely that founders will simply be able to give a prompt to their AI assistant: "Here's my business problem. What kind of leader do I need?" The AI will scope the role, generate a job description, create a market map of potential candidates, and even handle initial outreach. All in seconds rather than weeks.

So, if the market mapping, candidate identification, and outreach that search firms have traditionally charged premium fees for will soon be commoditized by AI… where will we add value?

I believe there are a few answers:

Contacting executives will still require human touch.
First contact has always required communication that is hyper relevant and personal, and I don’t think AI is capable of building that kind of authentic trust in the early moments of a conversation. Genuine human engagement, as well as the ability to deeply listen and understand nuance, is still going to matter greatly.

The ability to pattern match for candidate fit will still rely on human judgment.
Accurately assessing not just what’s on paper but also the qualities that make someone the right fit for a specific founder, their team, and their company culture– that is something I think AI won’t crack. This is human industry, and we need human judgment.

So, what does this all mean? Simply put, the bar for search firms is going to rise dramatically.

Those who can't provide nuanced and accurate judgment about candidates will become obsolete… but those who double down on the human elements of our work–the personalized communication, the intuition, and the inherent understanding of people that AI simply cannot replicate–will find themselves indispensable to the organizations they support.

Hillary Mager

Gemini Gets A New CFO

Congratulations to Dan Chen on joining Gemini as Chief Financial Officer! Sterling Strand was delighted to work with this team on the critical search. Without further ado, congratulations to Dan Chen.

With his impressive background as CFO at Nearside and Blue Foundry Bank, plus his experience as VP of Capital Markets and Bank Partnerships at Affirm, Dan brings exceptional expertise to Gemini's trusted cryptocurrency platform. Thank you to Matthew Kurteson and Jane Nolting-Kolb for guiding this successful match!

Want to learn more about why this hire comes at such a pivotal time for Gemini? Check out the coverage of Dan’s hiring in Bloomberg!