Feature
Few HR leaders today will argue about how artificial intelligence will affect HR. Analysts and industry media speculate relentlessly about that. What gets less attention is the effect streamlined HR has on the rest of the company.
Inside and outside HR, AI’s effect on the workforce is still up for debate. Some worry there will be a net loss of jobs while others say jobs are simply going to evolve as new technology takes hold. But the rise or decline of jobs is only part of the story. Even at this stage, some changes to the overall workforce are visible, especially as AI’s ability to actually do things becomes more evident.
A majority of CHROs (84%) believe technology will become even more important to HR than it already is, according to Mercer. Executives are attracted to AI’s ability to streamline work so employees spend less time on rote tasks and more on strategic issues. Increased productivity and improved efficiency are two of the selling points vendors use when pitching AI.
Yet the actual impact of AI remains unclear. Despite the attention being given to AI agents, for example, 85% of organization have yet to implement agentic AI, according to Salesforce. The idea of melding people and agents into a single team is still new. “Digital labor” describes technology products that take on the chores traditionally handled by people. Rather than staff a contact center, for instance, AI applications answer employee inquiries or screen candidates. Nearly three-quarters of employees, 73%, don’t understand the effect “digital labor” will have on their jobs.
Melding HR and Technology Functions
But some companies are moving forward. Consider Moderna’s recent move to merge its HR and technology functions. The company is determining which tasks are best done by technology and which are best done by people, according to The Wall Street Journal. To lead the effort, it promoted CHRO Tracey Franklin to the newly created post of chief people and digital technology officer.
Working with OpenAI, Moderna developed a number of its own Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs), including one that interprets employee questions on performance management, equity or benefits, then routes them to other, subject-focused AI models. “What would normally be a junior-level HR analyst type of work, the company has now converted into a GPT," Franklin told the Journal.
Obviously, such efforts have repercussions to headcount across the company. IBM reduced the staff of one HR service center from 800 people to roughly 60, Chief Communications Officer Jonathan Adashek said. “[We] were able to automate the repetitive rote tasks, allowing people to get into more value-creating roles and creating a better interface for our clients,” he said.
Using AI HR Savings
IBM used the funds AI saved HR to hire more programmers and sales people, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told the Journal in a separate article. “While we have done a huge amount of work inside IBM on leveraging AI and automation on certain enterprise workflows, our total employment has actually gone up, because what it does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,” he said.
IBM is incorporating agents into areas such as software engineering, sales and marketing, which Krishna calls “critical thinking” functions. That allows workers to take on responsibilities and tasks that “face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work,” he said.
“I do believe, and I’ve said this before, that AI is going to replace many clerical white-collar jobs and that’s the kind which I expect AI will replace over the next five years,” Krishna said on Fox Business.
“It’s not as simple as jobs go away,” Krishna amended. "The number of jobs though, perhaps in customer care, in coding, in business process, in developing artificial intelligence is going to increase so much that the net increase is going to be positive while there’s a movement from one area to the other.” In his eyes, that’s the nature of technology. “It takes away from some areas, but gives better in others.”
Salesforce Announces AI HR Agents
IBM and Moderna aren’t the only companies thinking about HR’s work this way. Recently, Salesforce announced AI-based capabilities for its HR Service. They come with a suite that uses AI agents to address pre-selected needs.
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The tools can be customized to support employee access to HR self-service capabilities, Salesforce stated. Employees use them from within Slack or through their employee portal without submitting tickets or studying their company’s policies. The agent taps into company data, knowledge bases and policies, and integrates with HCM and HRIS systems.
The company’s own HR team claimed a 96% resolution rate for self-service questions received through the product, and said it’s also resolved cases more quickly.
The point is, employers are taking advantage of AI to not only improve how people work but to restructure their workforce. Moderna and IBM demonstrate how executives should look beyond any individual function when they’re integrating it with AI, and think more holistically about their workforce.
Editor's Note: Read more on how AI is shaking up the workplace:
- ServiceNow and Salesforce Fight to Be the Center of AI Agent Operations — Salesforce and ServiceNow move into each other’s domains, but their eyes are on a much bigger prize.
- The Fake Company That Exposed the Real Limits of Autonomous Agents — The Carnegie Mellon study confirmed what many suspected: in spite of the promises of world-dominating results, agentic AI isn’t ready to run the ship.
- AI Experience Agents Are Reshaping Coaching, With a Human Touch — AI-powered coaching offers real-time, personalized support. But make no mistake: it's a complement, not a substitute for human coaches.
