This year’s Talent Connect conference made another appearance in Anaheim, mixing thought leaders, mentors, teachers, recruiters and recruiting leadership all in the same place and encouraging all of us to connect, share ideas, discuss differences and learn. As usual, LinkedIn announced new product features they will be adding to the suite of existing tools, like the acquisition of Glint, an employee engagement tool.

The big news for 2018, however, was the announcement of the long-anticipated LinkedIn Applicant Tracking System (ATS), called “Talent Hub.” The demo, while limited, was incredible. Think of this: your ATS will now come with over 500M potential candidates—preloaded!

While creating a job description in a mock hiring manager intake, you could see the potential candidate pool numbers change in real-time as the speaker changed parameters of the role. Making a skill a “must have” versus a “nice to have” dropped the potential candidate pool and visa versa. In real time! This alone is more collaboration and data sharing between recruiter and hiring manager than any other ATS on the market.

I was surprised how they downplayed this announcement until I realized how this would impact their current partnerships with other ATS’ like ICIMS, Greenhouse, Lever, and SmartRecruiter. They are toast. After what we were presented, I believe that it’s over for all other ATS’. The one possible exception is Google’s ATS, “Google Hire” and only because they have enough money to fight back. Unfortunately, money isn’t going to matter when Linkedin has all the data! They own the data map on where specific types of talent reside globally. They have all the profiles (500M+). Their own blog (accurately) bragged “LinkedIn’s Talent Hub Brings Together the Entire Hiring Process In One Place.”

This reveal is an absolute game changer for hiring mangers. Once LinkedIn officially launches and makes their ATS widely available, they are not only the 800-pound gorilla in recruiting / employment tools– they are the entire zoo! Everyone will tell you that LinkedIn is “THE” tool that you have to have for finding talent, both active and passive. The same way they made resume boards like Monster, Hotjobs, Dice etc. irrelevant, so too will other ATS’ become tier-2 players.

And unlike most LinkedIn products, they are making it affordable. Final pricing isn’t out yet, but rumors at the conference were that it would cost less than a recruiter seat and they were giving away one year of access on a multiyear contract!

You can’t blame LinkedIn for building an amazing business. They have. The question is, are there any real competitors to LinkedIn left?

The billion-dollar prize will go to whoever can figure out how to upend LinkedIn. And that ain’t gonna be easy!