What HR pros need to know about AI in the workplace

AI has become integrated into most workplaces, with nearly 67% of companies using it for work-related purposes, according to a recent survey of 1,000 full-time knowledge workers by workplace technology platform OwlLabs in partnership with Pulse.

Nearly half (46%) of the survey’s respondents said they’re either heavily using AI at work or somewhat reliant on it, OwlLab CEO Frank Weishaupt reported. They also said they’ve used AI mostly for administrative tasks like scheduling and calendar management, crunching data, and writing up content like emails and reports, the survey found.

Additionally, almost a quarter of knowledge workers said their employers are strongly supportive of using AI and are supplying tools, training and clear guidelines, according to the survey.

OwlLab’s findings signal a major shift from last year, most notably that employers are now actively encouraging employees to use AI, Weishaupt said. Only 4% of knowledge workers said AI use is discouraged, according to the survey.

While AI is helping employees get more done, as Weishaupt observed, it may also come with issues employers should be prepared to address, recent studies indicate.

Having clear corporate policies on AI use and making sure employees understand them is a must for helping to keep these issues at bay, a KPMG study released in April emphasized.

For example, although 67% of employees who responded to a KPMG survey said they’re using AI to enhance productivity, 57% admitted to making mistakes in their work due to AI errors, and 44% “knowingly used it improperly” at work. About half said they use AI without knowing whether it’s allowed, and another 46% admitted to uploading sensitive company data to public platforms.

A March report from AI vendor Writer and research group Workplace Intelligence pointed to a deeper problem. The study found that most executives say generative AI adoption is creating conflict and friction within their organization.

This friction has led to division between IT teams and other lines of business, as well as between executives and employees, which “demand robust change management, improved vendor quality, and enhanced collaboration between IT and other departments,” Writer’s chief strategy officer stated.

Employers may also want to keep an eye on how employees use AI during training, a report from ed-tech firm Moodle suggested.

More than half of U.S. employees told Moodle they use AI-related tools to complete mandatory workplace training, including to answer difficult questions they unsure of (21%) and help them with certain parts of questions (19%).

Additionally, 12% said they even let AI tools take the entire training for them, the study found.

AURORA, Colo. — “As you know, it’s the law now that all keynotes have to be about AI,” Eric Mosley, CEO and founder of Workhuman, joked in his opening address at the organization’s annual conference. The quip set the tone for the event, where even non-AI sessions touched on the technology’s promise to shape the future of the workplace.

Following Mosley’s address, organizational psychologist Adam Grant delivered his own keynote and sat for an interview afterward, which also veered into the topic of AI. Grant said in some ways the AI transformation is unfolding in the opposite way of early digital transformation. At that time, a number of organizations put themselves out of business by failing to adapt to the internet, despite the roadmap being fairly straightforward; in contrast, companies are now falling over themselves to adapt to AI, but the roadmap is anything but clear.

“As HR leaders, I think the best thing you can do is you can make a range of tools available to people and then encourage them to learn, experiment with them and share the results,” Grant suggested.

Workhuman Chief Human Experience Officer KeyAnna Schmiedl also made a guest appearance during a live taping of the HR Besties podcast, which focused on maintaining the human element during the age of AI transformation.

Echoing Grant on the importance of experimentation, Schmiedl shared a story of a particular successful AI integration that arose out of a company hackathon. The idea came from the call center, where employees noted the high stress of their roles due to managing customer dissatisfaction all day. Having to put people on hold to access their information tended to ramp up existing frustration even more.

The engineers and designers took the problem and developed an AI tool that creates a summary as soon as the customer’s phone number is recognized, providing customer information, history and potential order numbers. 

“To me, that whole solution coming from them meant that they could do the thing that they do best, which is being that empathetic human on the phone, as opposed to them being reduced to the robot,” Schmiedl said. 

An original AI developer weighs in

Shortly after that session, Noelle Russell provided a notable takeaway on AI integration in the workplace.

Russell, who worked on the original Amazon team that developed Alexa and founded the AI Leadership Institute, is an AI optimist. It provides the tools to “bring back the backlog,” she said, or focus on the things that have never been addressed because they were difficult or expensive, or because there weren’t enough resources.

Even layoffs — the elephant in the room — don’t necessarily need to be inevitable, Russell said. A recent project she’s been working on, “intelligent failure discovery,” helps employers better understand workers based on their habits, the training they opt into, the extracurricular things they express an interest in and the learning paths they pursue. The tech enables employers to identify workers in less successful departments and roles and “find a way to make you valuable to this company before [they] have to lay you off.”

Perhaps the most startling vision Russell painted was a future where people manage not only people but also machine “agents,” and the agents work together in a “swarm.” This is already coming to fruition in some companies, she said, where AI agents have email addresses, participate in meetings and behave in certain other ways like human workers.

“I used to believe AI was just a tool,” she said. “To be completely candid with you, it’s way more than a tool.”

Alluding to the transformational potential of AI, Russell referenced the Voltaire quote — “With great power comes great responsibility” — and likened the technology to a baby tiger.

“This is how AI models start in an organization,” she said. “They’re cute. They’re fluffy. But no one is asking the right questions, especially in the technology organizations.” 

No one is asking, “Hey, baby tiger, look at those paws. How big are you going to be? Those razor sharp teeth at birth — what do you eat? How much do you eat? Where are you going to live? What happens when I don’t want you anymore?” 

That’s where HR usually comes in, Russell said. She noted the increasing cooperation between technology and HR teams, and the need for that to continue into the future. HR should be asking the AI equivalent of baby-tiger questions: “How helpful can you be? How harmful can you be? How dishonest can you be?”

“Baby tigers become big tigers, and big tigers kill people,” Russell said. “We don’t want that.”

Sponsored content

By Paycor

Notice anything different? With more than 66% of surveyed HR professionals reportedly already using AI (SHRM), it’s very likely that the impact has already started to transform your workplace. And, with more than 50% of HR departments being challenged to do more with less (Sapient), it’s critical for individuals to find new ways to achieve the same, if not better outcomes.

However, if you’re not familiar with how AI can benefit HR professionals, here are ten key ways AI can help reduce workload and improve efficiency for HR teams.

1. Reduce Repetitive Workload

AI tools like customized chat and assistants can handle routine, yet personalized, employee requests (like time off balances or policy details), freeing HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives rather than repetitive administrative tasks.

2. Improve Decision-Making with Data

Summarize spreadsheets with ease. AI analysis tools can help transform raw HR data into clear, actionable insights—helping you spot trends in turnover, engagement, or labor costs without needing to build complex spreadsheets or dashboards.

3. Predict Employee Turnover

Want to know which employee is at risk of resigning? Predictive AI tools can identify employees who may be at risk of resigning, giving HR teams time to intervene and improve retention—based on patterns unique to your organization.

4. Enhance Employee Self-Service

Answer questions once (and for all). With AI-powered assistants, employees can find answers to their own HR questions anytime, improving their experience and reducing the burden on HR teams.

5. Simplify Benefits Enrollment

Decisions, decisions? Help employees navigate benefits selections with AI agents, or virtual assistants, which can guide employees through complex benefits decisions, making the process less overwhelming and more personalized.

6. Streamline Recruiting

Good news – you don’t have to start that job description from scratch (or after several days of waiting for the hiring manager). AI helps write job descriptions and match candidates to roles more effectively, saving time and improving the quality of hires—especially for hard-to-fill or specialized positions.

7. Tailor Constructive Feedback

Don’t take this the wrong way, but your employee review might need a review. Fortunately, AI sentiment analysis tools can check the tone and clarity of performance review comments, helping managers provide more balanced and actionable feedback to their teams.

8. Track Employee Sentiment

AI-powered surveys can analyze open-ended feedback and sentiment trends over time. With clear insights, HR leaders can get a clearer picture of engagement and morale.

9. Optimize Workforce Scheduling

Need help with employee scheduling? Usually everybody does. AI scheduling tools can now analyze historical data to help plan staffing levels more accurately—reducing unnecessary overtime, avoiding understaffing, and improving operational efficiency.

10. Empower HR to Be Strategic

By automating the manual tasks and surfacing insights quickly, AI tools give HR professionals more time and confidence to focus on long-term planning, culture, and leadership development.

What more could your HR team do with all the time you could save? Create a more engaged and productive workforce with help from AI.

CEOs expect the growth rate of artificial intelligence investments to more than double during the next two years, prompting an increase in AI-related hiring and reskilling initiatives, according to a report from IBM’s Institute for Business Value.

In a survey of 2,000 CEOs worldwide, 61% said they’re actively adopting AI agents and preparing to implement them at scale, yet half said recent rapid investments have led to disconnected technology and expertise.

“As AI adoption accelerates, creating greater efficiency and productivity gains, the ultimate pay-off will only come to CEOs with the courage to embrace risk as opportunity,” Gary Cohn, IBM vice chairman, wrote in the foreword of the study. “Meaning, focusing on what you can control, especially when there is so much you can’t.”

Nearly 7 in 10 CEOs said their organization’s success depends on maintaining a broad group of leaders with a deep understanding of strategy and the authority to make critical decisions, the report found.

In addition, 67% said differentiation depends on having the right expertise in the right positions with the right incentives. However, the top barriers to innovation include a lack of collaboration across organizational silos, an aversion to risk and a lack of expertise.

In response, CEOs said about a third of the workforce will need retraining or reskilling during the next three years. In tandem, 65% of CEOs said their organization will use automation to address skill gaps.

Notably, 54% of CEOs said they’re hiring for roles related to AI that didn’t exist a year ago.

C-suite leaders are grappling with conflict and silos amid their AI adoption plans, according to a Writer survey, similar to the barriers cited by IBM. About two-thirds of leaders said AI tools have led to division between IT teams and other teams, as well as between executives and employees. Some employees even admitted to “sabotaging” their company’s AI strategy or refusing to use AI tools, Writer said.

At the same time, most job seekers recognize the importance of digital fluency skills, according to a CompTIA report. Employees and job seekers alike said they’re looking to build their skills, particularly in soft skills, data analysis, cybersecurity and AI-related tools.

Among workers who use generative AI regularly, productivity increases about 33% for every hour they use it for their work, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. On average, workers who used AI daily saved four hours or more, the report found.

More companies are embracing and implementing artificial intelligence tools in the workplace, though many employees say they can’t keep up or haven’t received training, according to a report from the American Management Association.

Compared to last year, more North American organizations are leveraging AI, developing strategies and implementing governance, the report found. However, 57% of employees said they “feel behind” in keeping up with AI, and only half have received training.

“Many if not most organizations understand the incredible opportunity AI presents when its potential is recognized and embraced,” Manny Avramidis, president and CEO of the American Management Association, said in a statement. “Businesses that invest in training their employees and develop strategic AI plans are more likely to gain a competitive edge, drive innovation and improve efficiencies.”

In 2023, most North American organizations hadn’t yet used AI tools in the workplace and weren’t prepared to do so, according to a previous survey. By the end of 2024, though, survey respondents seemed to feel more confident, the association said.

For instance, in a December 2024 survey of 1,100 employees, managers and senior leaders, 63% said they trust managers to use AI fairly and with transparency, compared to about 34% in a previous survey. In particular, trust increased among employees at organizations with a strategy for AI governance and management.

However, more strategic training plans are needed, the report found. About 44% of respondents said AI tools are being used without a centralized approach, and less than half had received training. Workers also said they needed soft skills to apply AI effectively, such as problem solving, communication, analytical skills and critical thinking.

Starting small could be key, the report found, by using tools to brainstorm and collaborate among teams, which could relieve pressure and uneasiness about new technology.

“Training is essential, but it’s important to remember it’s an ongoing process,” Avramidis said. “People need opportunities to apply what they have learned, so they can see the impact learning has on their everyday lives.”

About half of workers said they believe AI is advancing faster than their company’s ability to train them, according to a TalentLMS report. They pointed to a “clear lack of guidelines” on AI tool use and training programs that “could be significantly improved,” particularly by increasing the speed of delivery of training programs.

Although half of workers received extra training during the past year, few learned about AI tools or technology, according to a Pew Research Center report. More than a third of respondents said AI skills are extremely or very important for workers, though soft skills such as communication and critical thinking ranked much higher.

A limited understanding of employees’ generative AI training needs may prevent companies from creating “robust training plans” to properly upskill their workforces, according to an Amazon Web Services report. 

IT decision-makers who were surveyed also said they lacked knowledge of how to implement training programs, and 41% said limited training budgets hinder efforts.

Notably, 56% of organizations surveyed by AWS said they have already developed generative AI training plans, and 19% said they will do so this year.

But organizations also plan to turn to aggressive hiring to fill the skills gap, AWS said — a practice that may hinder employers in the long run if proper focus is not put on training, other reports have said. About a quarter of IT managers surveyed said at least half of the new positions at their companies “will demand generative AI skills.”

AI-skilled candidates tend to command higher salaries, General Assembly said in its State of Tech Talent 2025 report, which can drive up costs, especially when employers scramble to hire to fill gaps.

The need for AI talent also has pushed employers toward skill-based hiring, as opposed to more traditional credential and degree-focused hiring, a Workday report from March said. Only around a third of leaders surveyed said they were confident their organizations had the skills needed for long-term success.

But even as AI adoption rises at work, training around it continues to lag, a Jobs for the Future report said; only 31% of workers surveyed said their employer provides AI training.

As business leaders voice concerns about talent shortages and uncertainty linked to the adoption of artificial intelligence tools, companies are increasingly turning to skills-based hiring, according to a report from Workday.

About half (51%) of leaders said they’re worried about future talent shortages. Although 54% said they have a clear view of the skills within their workforce today, only 32% said they’re confident their organization has the skills for long-term success.

“AI is reshaping the workplace, but the human element has never been more essential,” Chris Ernst, chief learning officer for Workday, said in a statement. “Organizations that embrace a skills-first mindset will not only unlock AI’s potential but also harness human ingenuity in new and transformative ways.”

In a global survey of 2,300 business leaders in director positions or higher, 81% agreed that adopting a skills-based approach improves productivity, innovation and organizational agility.

Many companies appear to be making the shift to skills-based hiring. About 55% said they’ve begun the transition to a skills-based talent model, and another 23% said they plan to start the transition in 2025.

Leaders also pointed to skills-based strategies as a way to help close opportunity gaps, including increased access to job opportunities for employees (82%), higher workforce equity (72%) and lower unemployment (61%).

So far, technology hiring managers and candidates have reported notable shifts with skills-based hiring, according to a Motion Recruitment report. The transition has helped IT companies move away from traditional hiring criteria and address skills shortages in the industry, the report found.

Despite growing popularity, however, skills-based hiring appears to be lagging behind ambitions, according to a report from The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School. Most companies haven’t yet made changes to drop degree requirements or increase their share of workers without degrees, the report found.

As artificial intelligence tools continue to transform talent acquisition, companies and job seekers alike will increasingly use AI, according to a post on LinkedIn’s Talent Blog.

“It seems I can’t go a day without hearing about how AI is transforming recruiting, and keeping pace with these changes can feel overwhelming,” Bonnie Dilber, a recruiting leader at Zapier, wrote in the post. “I regularly talk to recruiters — and job seekers — who feel like they’re always trying to play catch-up.”

The next six months will bring greater transparency about AI use, Dilber wrote. Companies will be expected to communicate a clearer stance on AI use during the application process and issue formal statements about what they allow. Employers will also ask candidates to verify their AI use during hiring.

Employers will likely use more tests to catch AI use during the hiring process, Dilber wrote. This could include on-site interviews, embedded commands in job descriptions or video verification during online interviews.

Beyond that, there will be more rigor in the interview process, Dilber wrote, such as skills assessments, open-ended questions and video uploads. These tactics can reduce application volume and keep less qualified or less motivated people from applying.

In turn, companies will likely use more AI tools for initial screening and identification of high-potential candidates. Employers will also assess candidates’ AI skills, potentially asking them to build solutions with AI as part of a skills assessment.

Although most job seekers use AI for basic help, some may use it to forge documents, create fake resumes and evade applicant filters, experts told HR Dive. Companies can combat this by using AI in screening platforms to verify documents, candidates’ identities and video calls.

At the same time, some job seekers say they may not apply to companies that use AI in the hiring process, according to an Express Employment Professionals survey. Most job seekers said they want human interaction, particularly to vet for soft skills such as attitude.

Job seekers also say they’re “uncomfortable” with AI use during resume review and decision-making, according to a ServiceNow report. Candidates said they prefer for AI to be used as a supportive tool for interview scheduling or candidate sourcing instead.

There’s a video on TikTok that has, as of early June, been liked nearly 1 million times. In it, a man in a suit and tie smiles and raises his eyebrows in excitement at the camera. A caption over the video sets the viewer up: He’s landed an interview for his dream job, and then “this happens.”

The video cuts to a virtual interview starting on his laptop. “Hello,” he says. 

“Hi,” a stilted female voice says. “Thank you so much for joining the interview today.” 

The man’s brows furrow. He’s talking to a robot.

“For our first question, let’s circle back. Tell me about a time when — when when when when — let’s circle back. Tell me about a time when—,” the bot says, beginning a glitching question loop that gives the man no opportunity to respond or even know what sort of story he’s supposed to be telling. On the screen is a still photo of a woman in a chambray shirt smiling in front of a house.

Finally, after a cut, the bot wraps up: “Thank you so much for answering the questions. I got a lot of great information—”

“I didn’t get to answer a question,” the man says in confusion.

Taking the human out of HR

The man is Leo Humphries, a Houston-area student who recently acquired his Bachelor’s degree with a focus on radio and television broadcasting. The job was for a news reporter role at a local broadcast station, he said.

He happened to record the now-viral moment because he has a friend in HR and wanted to send the interview to her afterward for feedback on his skills, he told HR Dive. Instead, he seemed to capture the zeitgeist.

“What shocked me was how many people were in the comments saying, ‘This happened to me,’” Humphries said. 

Some of the most-liked comments on the video indeed provide insight into how job seekers and people more broadly are feeling about the intrusion of artificial intelligence into parts of the recruitment process that normally belong to HR pros or hiring managers: “It’s so disrespectful to the applicants”; “Taking the HUMANS out of Human Resources is the worst corporate move ever”; and “If they don’t have the decency to interview you face to face, they aren’t worth your time.”

The interview chatbot phenomenon is just the latest AI workplace integration causing a backlash among workers and customers alike. Duolingo, a company widely loved for its fun social media presence and cute owl mascot, prompted a massive backlash when its CEO announced an “AI-first” strategy in April, for example. The backlash was so intense the brand deleted all its TikTok and Instagram posts. 

As the glitching bot and “AI-first” backlashes demonstrate, employers may not fully understand the implications of embracing AI in its current form. An Orgvue survey of employers conducted recently found more than half of those who laid off workers with the intention of replacing them with AI regretted it. Further, a quarter of leaders said they didn’t know which roles would most benefit from AI. 

The ‘wild west mentality’

Employers may fear being left behind in the AI integration boom, but the uncertainty about how to use it has fomented a “wild west mentality,” Brian Smith, an organizational psychologist and founder of IA Business Advisors, told HR Dive. 

A lot of people have bought into AI and “just gone all in,” Smith said, using the tech to replace nearly any type of work they can think of. But he’s heard from employers that are fielding customer frustrations as they’re being forced to interact with bots, which lack the ability to be emotionally contextual. “It’s not empathetic to the human interaction,” he said. “It’s like speaking to Ferris Bueller’s teacher … a lot of people are hitting the ‘give me a human’ button.”

The use of AI interviewers goes even further, Smith said. “This is replacing a human to have human interaction, and I think that’s almost unethical — and it is disrespectful.” Smith hedged with “almost” because “there’s a huge discussion on what is the ethical use of AI and what is not,” he said. “And I think we’re getting really close to that boundary when we start having companies pretend that [their] candidates are speaking to a human when [they’re] not.”

Humphries told HR Dive he’d had no warning the interview would be done by AI, and he’d previously spoken to a real person at the company to arrange the interview. He shared an email from the company’s “Human Resources Department” that confirmed the interview time with a link for the meeting. “I’m looking forward to connecting with you again for your video interview,” the email said. 

The process might seem a bit backwards — given interview scheduling is a more commonly embraced use of AI, while AI interviews seem to be a newer role for the tech — but the company’s head-scratching approach may underscore Smith’s wild west theory. 

A (sort of) happy ending

Humphries found the experience demoralizing, he told HR Dive. “It scares me for people fresh out of college,” he said, with companies “removing so much of the humanness” to the recruitment process. 

In an update posted a couple weeks after his initial video, Humphries explained that the company saw the video and reached out to him to apologize. 

“They let me know that they were trying out this new software that this company had promised them would help them with processing applicants … and they just didn’t know that this was happening,” he said. The company said it was reviewing and addressing the issues, he said, although it was unclear whether they intended to continue using AI for interviewing. 

Humphries also touched on the problem of AI applicants that employers face when hiring. “I think that AI’s just confusing a lot of people,” he said.

While recent research showed AI in the hiring process might be a deal-breaker for many applicants, Humphries told HR Dive he’d still consider taking a job with the company if they offered him another interview. “With a human being, 100%,” he said.