In this special live episode of the Future Proof HR podcast, recorded on the floor at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas, Thomas Kunjappu sits down with Shawn McIntire, General Counsel at Pebl, for a quick but packed conversation about what AI governance actually looks like in practice at a global EOR company.

Pebl provides employment outsourcing solutions that allow companies to hire talent internationally without a legal entity in-country, giving businesses a faster path to global expansion. As General Counsel, Shawn has had to think carefully about how AI fits into the company's existing risk framework and how to build a culture where employees feel comfortable experimenting without flying blind.

They get into why GDPR is the right lens for thinking about AI governance, why keeping your policy short and jargon-free matters more than covering every edge case, and where HR teams are most exposed to AI-related liability today. Shawn also makes the case that the answer to "should AI be used for this?" is almost never no, and explains why every employee should be thinking about how to work themselves out of their current job.

A candid, grounded conversation straight from one of HR's biggest stages.

Topics Discussed:

• Why GDPR is a useful framework for thinking through AI governance
• Fitting AI risk into your company's existing risk profile, not the other way around
• Keeping AI policy short, simple, and actually usable
• Where HR teams face the most AI liability risk today (hint: hiring)
• How bias gets amplified when AI is making decisions at scale
• The case for always iterating and never putting a lid on AI exploration

Additional Resources:

• Cleary's AI-powered HR Chatbot
• Future Proof HR Community
• Connect with Shawn McIntire on LinkedIn