The contingent workforce industry is entering a new phase.
This month, Staffing Industry Analysts named Indeed Flex in its Temporary Staffing Platform Update 2026, listing the business among the world’s largest commercial temporary staffing platforms alongside some of the biggest names in workforce solutions.
More notably, SIA specifically highlighted Alma, Indeed Flex’s AI-powered workforce management assistant, as an example of the AI advancements reshaping the staffing platform market.
For us, the recognition matters less as a milestone and more as validation of where the industry is heading.
Because the staffing market is no longer simply moving toward digitisation.
It is moving toward operational intelligence.
The Platform Shift Is Accelerating
SIA’s report outlines a market undergoing structural transformation.
The global temporary staffing platform market reached $19 billion in 2025 and has grown roughly 9.5x since 2019.
At the same time, AI adoption inside staffing operations is rapidly increasing:
65% of staffing employees now report using AI in their work, up from 43% the previous year.
Staffing platforms are increasingly outperforming traditional models due to AI and automation advantages.
The report notes that staffing platforms are uniquely positioned because nearly every interaction can become operational data that continuously improves algorithms over time.
This is the key shift.
The industry is moving beyond systems that simply report operational problems toward systems capable of helping solve them.
Visibility Was Never the End Goal
Most workforce technology already gives organisations visibility.
Managers can see open shifts.
They can see no-shows.
They can see overtime spend.
They can see agency usage.
But seeing operational friction is not the same as resolving it.
That’s the gap many operations teams are still experiencing today.
Despite heavy investment in AI across industries, the majority of organisations are struggling to translate pilots into measurable operational outcomes. AI often remains disconnected from the real operational systems where workforce decisions actually happen.
That’s the problem Alma was built to address.
From Reporting to Action
Alma is being developed as an AI-powered workforce management assistant designed to help operations teams take action directly inside workforce workflows.
Today, that includes capabilities such as:
- removing workers,
- adjusting demand,
- streamlining operational requests through natural language interactions.
But the broader direction is more important than the individual features.
The long-term vision is workforce systems that can:
- identify operational risks earlier,
- recommend corrective actions,
- automate repetitive coordination work,
- forecast workforce demand patterns,
- surface supplier performance insights,
- and help operations leaders move from reactive staffing management toward proactive workforce optimisation.
SIA’s report points directly toward this evolution.
The report highlights how staffing platforms are increasingly investing in:
- predictive analytics,
- workforce forecasting,
- AI-powered matching,
- dynamic pricing,
- conversational assistants,
- and intelligent operational tooling.
This is no longer a theoretical innovation.
It is becoming the competitive direction of the category.
Why This Matters for Enterprise Workforce Leaders
Enterprise operations are becoming significantly harder to manage.
Labour demand fluctuates faster.
Costs are under pressure.
Contingent workforce ecosystems are fragmented.
Managers are expected to do more with fewer resources.
The operational burden is growing faster than most workforce teams can scale manually.
That’s why the future of workforce management likely will not be defined by who has the most dashboards.
It will be defined by who can reduce operational friction fastest.
The organisations that gain advantage will be those that can:
- shorten response times,
- automate repetitive workforce coordination,
- improve fill performance,
- reduce operational leakage,
- and help frontline managers spend less time firefighting.
That is ultimately where workforce AI becomes commercially meaningful.
The Category Is Expanding Fast
Another important takeaway from the SIA report is that staffing platforms are no longer confined to traditional “shift work” use cases.
The report highlights major expansion across:
- healthcare,
- industrial staffing,
- education,
- engineering,
- professional staffing,
- and increasingly IT and AI-related workforce segments.
The market is broadening because workforce complexity itself is broadening.
AI is accelerating that shift.
Where We Think the Industry Is Going
We believe the next generation of workforce platforms will not operate as passive systems of record.
They will become active operational partners.
Not replacing workforce teams.
Not replacing managers.
But helping them execute faster, respond earlier, and operate with more confidence.
That transition is already underway.
And the recognition from SIA reflects that this is becoming a broader category movement, not an isolated product trend.
Watch the Webinar
To explore this shift in more detail, James Terry is hosting a 25-minute on-demand webinar:
The Execution Gap: Why Workforce Leaders Can’t Delay AI
The session explores:
- Why most AI initiatives stall before delivering operational value,
- Where workforce operations still break down,
- What Alma is doing today,
- and where AI-powered workforce management is heading next.
Reserve your seat here:
