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Artificial intelligence has evolved from a futuristic concept to a tangible reality, shaping the modern workplace. In just a few short years, AI has transitioned from being a topic of speculative fiction to an integral part of daily operations for millions of workers across the globe.
From streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity to monitoring employee performance, AI's presence in the workplace is rapidly expanding. This technology promises unprecedented efficiency and innovation, however, it also brings some relatively existential challenges and concerns that need to be addressed.
As AI spreads rapidly across America’s workplaces, there persists a heated debate about how it will transform the future of work.
And in fact, what many people fail to realize is that AI has already fundamentally changed millions of workers’ jobs – with results erring towards both positive and negative, depending on industry and seniority.
At Amazon, for example, some warehouse and delivery drivers complain that AI-driven bots have fired them without any human intervention whatsoever. At some companies, surveillance apps track how much time workers spend in trips to the bathroom, with some workers protesting that the time limits are too strict.
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As AI revolutionizes the recruitment life cycle at warp speed, HR leaders must stay informed about AI’s advantages and its current shortcomings.
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That is our industry’s biggest challenge as we navigate this new terrain. We hope these insights, tips, and predictions will help drive innovation and excellence in your hiring practice.
Many corporations gather information about their employees through webcams, keyboards, internet activity, and phone logs, and that can include private information about workers’ political opinions, sexual orientation, union activity, and even their emotions and mental state.
Inside many call centers, AI tools monitor the calls that agents make, and based on factors like the agent’s or customer’s tone of voice, those tools often send messages to an agent’s computer, directing them to talk with more empathy or energy. And then there are the forecasts that AI will wipe out millions of jobs.
The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, tasks that account for up to 30% of the hours now worked across the US could be automated, and that AI will push 12 million American workers out of their jobs. Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will disrupt 300 million jobs worldwide by 2030.
Workers' growing dependence on AI
For many workers, AI has become an indispensable tool, offering a competitive edge and simplifying complex tasks.
Berlin-based business consultant Matt and his colleague were among the first at their workplace to discover ChatGPT, mere weeks after its release. As Matt told CNBC, the chatbot transformed their workdays overnight. "It was like discovering a video game cheat," says Matt.
"I asked a really technical question from my PhD thesis, and it provided an answer that no one would be able to find without consulting people with very specific expertise. I knew it would be a game changer."
Day-to-day tasks in his fast-paced environment – such as researching scientific topics, gathering sources, and producing thorough presentations to clients – suddenly became a breeze.
The only catch: Matt and his colleague had to keep their use of ChatGPT a closely guarded secret. They accessed the tool covertly, mostly on working-from-home days.
"We had a significant competitive advantage against our colleagues – our output was so much faster and they couldn't comprehend how. Our manager was very impressed and spoke about our performance with senior management," he says.
Whether the technology is explicitly banned, highly frowned upon or giving some workers a covert leg up, some employees are searching for ways to keep using generative AI tools discreetly.
The technology is increasingly becoming an employee backchannel: in a February 2023 study by professional social network Fishbowl, 68% of 5,067 respondents who used AI at work said they don't disclose usage to their bosses.
Even in instances without workplace bans, employees may still want to keep their use of AI hidden, or at least guarded, from peers. In simple terms, we don't have widespread norms established around AI yet – and to those unfamiliar with AI’s efficiencies, the use of such tools can initially look like workers are conceding that they’re not actually that skilled at their jobs, if the machine is doing many of these tasks.
As a result, forums are popping up for workers to swap strategies for keeping a low profile.
In communities like Reddit, many people seek methods of secretly circumventing workplace bans, either through high-tech solutions (integrating ChatGPT into a native app disguised as a workplace tool) or rudimentary ones to obscure usage (adding a privacy screen, or discreetly accessing the technology on their personal phone at their desk).
The fear of job loss
There are also widespread fears that AI will lead to significant job displacement. The McKinsey Global Institute research estimates that AI will push 12 million American workers out of their jobs. Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will disrupt 300 million jobs worldwide by 2030.
With AI-powered tools keeping tabs on whether employees meet their production quotas, these tools sometimes automatically increase the quotas of employees who regularly meet them. With employers increasingly using AI to screen résumés, AI has faced complaints about discriminating against older applicants, women, people of color, and workers with disabilities.
At many call centers, AI-powered apps review the transcripts of agents’ conversations with customers and sometimes give warnings or demerits to agents for straying too far from the assigned script.
Some economists warn that if corporations can roll out AI with little input from workers, then AI will increase production and profits for corporations, with few or any gains for workers – all while increasing the nation’s overall income inequality.
Workers will suffer from speed-ups, stress, and layoffs, and society at large may have to finance tens of billions of dollars in unemployment insurance, health coverage, and perhaps food and rent assistance for many who lose their jobs to AI.
The need for regulation and training
To minimize AI’s negative effects on America’s 160 million workers, there are many things government, labor, and business should do. Government should require companies to notify their workers when they’re using AI tools to monitor them.
Recognizing that workers aren’t in a position to assess the downsides of AI, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO union federation, has called for having a government agency vet AI technologies to determine whether they’re harmful to workers – just as the FDA vets drugs “to make sure drugs don’t kill people before they’re put out into the world”.
With AI threatening to cause large-scale layoffs, the government should create incentives for employers to embrace four-day, even three-day workweeks to spread the work around and minimize layoffs. For example, if AI makes a 1,000-employee company consider laying off 200 people, that company could avoid layoffs by shifting its 1,000 employees to four-day workweeks.
Labor unions need to snap to attention on AI and educate workers, both union and non-union, about AI’s harms and benefits – it can mean more invasiveness, but also increase productivity and hopefully workers’ wages, too.
Unions should also educate workers about how to press their employers to reduce AI’s harms and to share the fruits of AI so that workers, and not just shareholders, benefit from the increased productivity and profits it produces. (The AFL-CIO’s Technology Institute is already doing some of this educating.)
The business perspective
As for business, Michael Richards, policy director at the US Chamber of Commerce’s technology engagement center, said that “while there are clear benefits” to AI, “there are legitimate concerns” surrounding the technology.
Richards said companies “recognize that engaging in an inclusive dialogue about using new technologies is critical.” Such a dialogue could reduce workers’ distrust of AI and encourage employee input, for instance, about ways to tweak AI tools to have them work more efficiently alongside workers.
There’s little doubt that AI will bring big changes, good and bad, to America’s workplaces. Yet there is a direct correlation between using artificial intelligence and concerns about job security.
The more workers leverage generative AI in their jobs, the more likely they fear that automation may replace them. According to a December CNBC SurveyMonkey Workforce survey, 60% of employees who use AI regularly reported they worry about its impact on their jobs. Seventy-two percent of respondents who use the technology recognize that automation significantly increases productivity.
Automation is already being deployed heavily in the workforce. 78% of C-suite leaders have reported that their company actively uses generative AI today, according to a survey by UKG. Seven out of ten C-suite executives say enhancing their use of AI is a central priority for their companies. As for whether this will yield positive or negative results for productivity and the future of the workforce, unfortunately there’s little way to know.
Yet, as the pace of development speeds, and concerns grow, the only certainty is that the issue of AI usage in the workplace will become only more divisive before the situation improves.
