AI is changing jobs faster than many traditional HR systems can measure them. Lattice is betting that performance management needs to change with it. The people-management software company has acquired Pando, a just-in-time performance platform focused on competency-based progression and real-time performance signals, and will bring Pando founder and CEO Barbra Gago into its executive team as chief marketing and strategy officer.
The deal is less about adding another performance-review feature than about redefining what performance management looks like when employees increasingly work alongside AI.
Traditional performance systems tend to organize around recurring events: annual or semiannual reviews, goal setting, manager check-ins and periodic development conversations. Pando was built around a different premise—capturing evidence and signals closer to the moment work happens, then using that context to inform employee progression and performance decisions.
Lattice says the acquisition will combine its continuous-performance platform with Pando’s competency-based and AI-native approach to create a more continuous model of employee performance. Pando has worked with more than 100 companies, according to the companies’ announcement.
The timing is notable. AI is not simply adding another tool to employees’ software stacks; it is changing the underlying tasks, skills and expectations attached to many jobs.
That creates a problem for HR leaders. A competency framework that accurately described a software engineer, marketer or analyst two years ago may not fully capture how that role operates when AI handles portions of research, coding, content production or analysis.
Gartner says that by 2030, the half-life of technical skills could fall to as little as two years, while more than 30 million jobs annually could be redesigned rather than eliminated by AI-driven innovation.
In that environment, performance management becomes partly a workforce-intelligence problem.
Companies need to know not only whether an employee hit a target, but which capabilities are developing, where skills are becoming obsolete, how work is changing and whether employees are prepared for the next version of their roles.
That’s where the Lattice-Pando combination is aimed.
Lattice already offers performance reviews, goals, feedback, one-on-ones, engagement, compensation and employee development capabilities. Pando adds what Lattice describes as real-time signals from work, evidence-based calibration and employee progression tools. The acquisition also brings Pando’s AI-native product and engineering talent into Lattice.
For HR technology buyers, the strategic shift is significant. The market has been moving from systems that document performance toward systems that help organizations continuously understand and improve it.
Competitors occupy different parts of that landscape. Workday and SAP SuccessFactors approach performance as part of broader enterprise HCM suites. Culture Amp combines employee experience, engagement and performance capabilities. 15Five has built around continuous performance and manager effectiveness. Betterworks emphasizes goals and performance management. Lattice has increasingly positioned itself as a connected people platform rather than a standalone review application.
Pando’s competency-centric approach gives Lattice another way to differentiate: connecting performance evidence with career progression and the capabilities an organization needs next.
The appointment of Gago also matters. Before founding Pando, she helped bring brands including Culture Amp, Greenhouse and Miro to market. At Lattice, she will oversee marketing while also contributing to broader category strategy.
That makes the transaction partly a product acquisition and partly a leadership hire.
Lattice has been building toward the same AI-and-performance thesis through other moves. The company previously acquired Mandala’s AI-native coaching technology and launched Lattice MCP, which brings performance context into AI tools used by employees and managers.
The MCP strategy is particularly relevant because it points toward a future in which HR data does not remain trapped inside an HR application. Performance goals, feedback and development context could increasingly become inputs to the broader AI systems employees use for work.
That raises an important governance question.
Performance data is among the most sensitive information in an enterprise. Giving AI systems access to employee feedback, career aspirations, competency assessments or manager evaluations creates obvious questions around permissions, privacy, bias and explainability.
A useful AI-enabled performance platform therefore cannot simply generate more recommendations. It needs to establish why a recommendation was made, what evidence supports it and who is authorized to act on it.
The workforce challenge is equally important. McKinsey’s 2025 research found that 88% of surveyed organizations reported using AI in at least one business function, but only 7% said AI had been fully scaled across the organization.
That gap between experimentation and scaled adoption is where HR technology becomes strategically relevant. AI deployment changes jobs, workflows and skills; HR systems have to provide the infrastructure for employees and managers to adapt.
Gartner’s 2026 research reinforces that direction. The firm says organizations should shift toward skills-based advancement as AI changes traditional career paths, while its research found that 40% of organizations had eliminated outdated roles and nearly half had redesigned team structures to be more cross-functional or agile.
For People leaders, the implication is that performance management may become less about looking backward and more about continuously measuring organizational capability.
The Lattice-Pando deal does not solve that problem by itself. Integrating two products, aligning data models and building employee trust around AI-driven recommendations will be substantial work.
But it reflects where the HR technology market is heading: toward systems that connect performance, skills, career mobility and AI rather than treating them as separate workflows.
The companies that make that transition successfully will need to answer a simple question with increasingly sophisticated data: how are people and AI working together, and is that combination actually improving business performance?
Market Landscape
The HR technology market is shifting from periodic performance administration toward continuous performance management, skills intelligence and AI-enabled workforce planning.
Lattice competes with broad HCM providers such as Workday and SAP SuccessFactors as well as specialist platforms including Culture Amp, 15Five and Betterworks. The competitive distinction increasingly comes down to how much intelligence a platform can derive from employee and organizational data—and how safely that intelligence can be put into managers’ workflows.
AI adds another layer. Gartner reports that 92% of HR leaders have taken steps to implement AI, while its research suggests AI could perform up to half of current HR activities by 2030.
That does not mean HR becomes automated. Instead, the function is likely to spend less time administering processes and more time managing workforce redesign, skills development, organizational change and AI governance.
For enterprise buyers, the important criteria will therefore extend beyond feature counts. Data quality, interoperability, privacy, explainability, competency frameworks and employee trust will become increasingly important when evaluating AI-enabled performance management software.
Top Insights
- Lattice acquired Pando to combine continuous performance management with competency-based progression, real-time work signals and AI-native people intelligence for enterprise HR teams.
- Barbra Gago becomes Lattice’s chief marketing and strategy officer, adding Pando’s founder to the executive team while bringing additional AI-native product and engineering talent.
- AI is shortening the life cycle of workplace skills, forcing People leaders to rethink performance, career progression and workforce planning around continuous capability development.
- Lattice’s AI strategy extends beyond HR automation, using performance context through Lattice MCP and related technologies to connect people intelligence with employee AI workflows.
- Enterprise HR buyers face new governance demands, including privacy, permissions, bias, explainability and evidence when AI is used to inform performance and career decisions.
