Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Ulta reached 65,000 employees and couldn't keep throwing headcount at HR

Rachel Williamson · How A Beauty Company Built An AI Agent — With Rachel Williamson and Josh Siebert · Jun 8, 2026 · at 18:48

Rachel Williamson, VP of People Strategy at Ulta Beauty, explains why the company had to turn to ServiceNow AI automation after reaching organizational capacity limits.

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“We've grown so much, and we had 65,000 associates that we were supporting, and we no longer could throw more headcount at our support processes, and we could no longer add more work to my team's plate.”

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More from Rachel Williamson

Disclosure
Ulta uses software to navigate complex, location-specific California employment laws
“The California laws, from an employment perspective, vary sometimes by county, by city, and so we can put that into a system and that With ServiceNow, and it can tell that you live in this city, in this state, so this policy applies to you. So when you're aski…”
Rachel Williamson Jun 8, 2026 ▶ 6:44 How A Beauty Company Built An AI Agent — With Rachel Williamson and Josh Siebert
Disclosure
Ulta offloaded routine HR tasks like W-2 checks to AI bots
“So we looked at my team's Like, top contact drivers, and we did go through that list and determined, you know, just that conversation of what are we comfortable with completely, you know, offloading to a bot? What do we think is so benign that we're okay with?…”
Rachel Williamson Jun 8, 2026 ▶ 12:29 How A Beauty Company Built An AI Agent — With Rachel Williamson and Josh Siebert
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