the wall street journal: AI evolving in HR for two decades.
For two decades, AI-based tools have been changing almost every realm of HR. With algorithms to flag hiring biases and data-driven decisions impacting everything from recruitment to succession planning, HR has helped lead the way in using AI to power decisions, optimize opportunity and mitigate risk.
“[AI-based tools] enable HR teams to identify early warning signs and predict attrition risks, empowering them to implement targeted interventions and strategies for retaining valuable employees,” said Thomas Jajeh, chief digital officer at Randstad Enterprise.
Yet as AI expands and grows increasingly sophisticated, so does its potential to topple long-standing organizational hierarchies. For example, as AI gives individual contributors more autonomy, decision-making will become far more distributed and problem-solving bottlenecks will be reduced or eliminated.
Jajeh believes organizational structures will naturally flatten with fewer layers of middle management as AI can streamline communication and make human decision-making more cross-functional and collaborative.
But what are the risks? For example, if AI is confined to specific functions, how can that potentially impede holistic decision-making? And if AI entirely replaces specific functions, how might the lack of human insights result in unethical or illegal decisions?