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There’s not a day that goes past without the inbox getting the latest release on how AI will transform our working world, but of late it does appear that the hype has reached a new level; HR Grapevine reports on whether AI really will ‘unbundle’ HR allowing it to do what it’s best at doing.
‘Transformation’ is a buzz word that has many connotations in the world of HR - it is used readily to suggest that the discipline will be freed from its shackles of administration and processes, ‘strategy’ is another bandied about term and the suggestion is those two partnerships will tie the knot once they have dragged AI to the altar to sign the deal.
The market for AI surveys is heavily saturated too – a quick search of the inbox pulls up a smorgasbord of a lucky dip that lands this time at the feet of Oakland data consultancy, that say that 40% of global companies report they use AI within their business. Additionally, 76% of HR leaders believe that if they do not adopt AI in the next one to two years, they will not be as successful as organisations that have embraced it. Again, another standard AI finding. Some hazy details on what that adoption is and why AI is considered by HR to be the guarantee to their progress.
What can AI do that HR can’t?
As a Luddite myself, I need some persuading how any next-gen IT tool can help me work faster, better, smarter. I quite enjoy the quagmire of calcification and am happily wallowing where my fingers meet the keyboard. Do I need more? Don’t get me wrong, when the craze was the Blackberry, (remember them?) I vowed it wouldn’t be a hit until literally everyone in my publishing office was glued to them and that was then (thankfully) usurped by a brick phone and so we went on – a couple of decades later the new kid tech on the street, to which I must be persuaded by is artificial intelligence, except by its very nature anything that is ‘artificial’ such as E-numbers and the like, evokes feelings of distrust and a quiet gnawing of an illness that is yet to appear. I continue to be distrustful.
