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I spent three days at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas this October, and what stuck with me most is how little anyone on the floor said about Form I-9 and E-Verify. AI was the headline at nearly every booth and integrations were the conversation underneath it, but out of hundreds of vendors, only a handful touched the I-9 at all, and none of them were leading with it.
It was a great event, and I'm glad we went. It felt more like an industry conference than a buyer's show, with the big HCM platforms anchoring the floor and what seemed like a thousand applicant tracking systems filling in around them. I came home encouraged, and a few of the conversations are worth passing along to anyone who owns their company's I-9s.
The I-9 vendors I found were mostly background-check companies, and they led with background checks. Equifax and Experian were both there with the I-9 well down their list, and nobody I talked to was offering managed I-9 services or a person to complete Section 2 for a remote hire. No vendor I met claimed that AI handles the I-9 or E-Verify, which I think is the honest position, since Section 2 still comes down to a trained person looking at real documents and the new hire holding them.
That's the work our compliance team does every day, and it's been our focus for 28 years. Seeing how few companies even attempt it was a good reminder of why customers come to us.
Even in a room full of HR technology people, a lot of folks didn't know what remote Section 2 is, and several assumed it meant sending the new hire to a notary. They were surprised to hear it can be done on a live video call.
USCIS lets you designate any person as your authorized representative for Section 2, and a notary acting in that role isn't acting as a notary and shouldn't put a seal on the form (M-274, Section 2.0). Separately, employers enrolled in E-Verify and in good standing can examine documents remotely over a live video call under the DHS alternative procedure, as long as they offer it the same way to every employee at that hiring site (USCIS, Remote Examination of Documents). For a company with new hires spread across states, that's usually faster than finding a notary in every town.
Our US-based compliance team completes Section 2 over a live video call, on the new hire's phone or laptop. See how remote I-9 verification works, with a flat per-hire price and no minimum.
I heard the same thing from people at several companies, which is that running E-Verify through their HCM is a constant source of pain. I also spent an hour at the E-Verify booth with the DHS staff, who were generous with their time and eventually had me sit down behind the table with them.
If E-Verify runs through your HR system today, ask your vendor who handles a stuck case, how a tentative nonconfirmation (TNC) gets to the employee, and when they'll be on version 32 of the E-Verify interface, which every vendor has to adopt by March 31, 2027. We wrote up what v32 means for employers if you want the background before you ask.
The part that surprised me most was how many vendors are stepping away from small business. During the show, a prospect told me an HR platform wouldn't take their call because they hire about 100 people a year, and another vendor told me directly that they'd rather not work with companies under 500 employees because small accounts mean more onboarding and more support tickets.
That seems like an odd position to take in 2026. We'll complete remote Section 2 for a company that hires five people a year,. As integrations get cheaper to build, I think the companies that serve whoever needs them will end up with the strongest customer base, and over time that customer base is the moat.
Underneath all the AI talk, the question at the big HCM booths was whether to open up to partners. Some of the largest platforms were glad to talk about bringing outside specialists into their marketplaces, and others are clearly building walled gardens. My read is that the open ones serve more of the market and already know customers leave when one module doesn't do the job, while the closed ones haven't felt that yet.
For HR teams, it's good news. You shouldn't have to choose between the HR system you like and an I-9 and E-Verify specialist that stands behind its work, and the platforms that understand that are making it easier to have both.
We have a clear lane, and three days in Las Vegas made it clearer. The I-9 itself has to be right every time, with accurate reports, accurate documents, and a process fast enough that no one is waiting on it, and that's the bar we hold ourselves to. If you were at HR Tech and we didn't get a chance to talk, or you're rethinking how your I-9s and E-Verify cases get done, book a free compliance call with our team and we'll walk through it with you.
Our compliance team is a phone call away.