AI and the Evolution of Workplace Policies

Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of working with an extraordinary group of AI leaders on a new white paper: “Proactively Developing and Assisting the Workforce in the Age of AI," recently published by University of Notre Dame - Keough School of Global Affairs and Americans for Responsible Innovation. While there's still much we don't yet know about AI’s impact on work, our paper offers recommendations and questions to consider—grounded in the data and evidence we have—to help workers and organizations prepare, including: 🧩 Reimagine work at the task level Jobs aren’t monoliths—they’re bundles of tasks and skills. AI will automate some, augment others, and leave some distinctly human. Leaders who approach job transformation as an exercise in unbundling and rebundling jobs can move past blunt job cuts and more intelligently design future roles. 🏗️ Treat AI training as infrastructure, not overhead Companies invest heavily in AI systems but underinvest in the people who use them. Training should be treated as infrastructure, no matter how it’s classified on a balance sheet. Tools like digital skill wallets are tough to scale, but AI can help dynamically map, match, and "stack" skills as roles evolve. 🤝 Integrate dignity into AI adoption AI is stress-testing the social contract at work: the expectation that people will be treated fairly, respected, and share in the benefits of progress. Several warning signs are already here: Workers turning to "shadow AI," pocketing time savings rather than reallocating it back to their organization, and staging “AI productivity theater” to climb dashboards built on superficial usage metrics. Dignity isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the foundation for lasting adoption and real value, not short-lived theatrics. I'm honored to be headed to Washington, D.C. in a couple of weeks with a few of my co-authors to share our findings with policy members. Link to the paper—co-authored by—Yong Suk Lee, John Babak Soroushian, Justin Bullock, Michaela Carroll, Jane Dokko, Jacob Dominski, Harry Holzer, Mike Horrigan, Zanele Munyikwa, Matthias Oschinski, Courtney Radsch, PhD, Daniel Rock, Maria Rossi, Rob Seamans, Alexandra M. Towns, PhD, and Baobao Zhang—in the comments👇. If you're in D.C., please join us for a live session on the findings (link also 👇)

According to a recent BBC article, half of all workers use personal generative AI tools (like ChatGPT) at work—often without their employer's knowledge or permission. So the question isn't whether your employees are using AI—it's how to ensure they use it responsibly. A well-crafted AI policy can help your business leverage AI's benefits while avoiding the legal, ethical, and operational risks that come with it. Here's a simple framework to help guide your workplace AI strategy: ✅ DO This When Using AI at Work 🔹 Set Clear Boundaries – Define what's acceptable and what's not. Specify which AI tools employees can use—and for what purposes. (Example: ChatGPT Acceptable; DeepSeek Not Acceptable.) 🔹 Require Human Oversight – AI is a tool, not a decision-maker. Employees should fact-check, edit, and verify all AI-generated content before using it. 🔹 Protect Confidential & Proprietary Data – Employees should never input sensitive customer, employee, or company information into public AI tools. (If you're not paying for a secure, enterprise-level AI, assume the data is public.) 🔹 Train Your Team – AI literacy is key. Educate employees on AI best practices, its limitations, and risks like bias, misinformation, and security threats. 🔹 Regularly Review & Update Your Policy – AI is evolving fast—your policy should too. Conduct periodic reviews to stay ahead of new AI capabilities and legal requirements. ❌ DON'T Do This With AI at Work 🚫 Don't Assume AI Is Always Right – AI can sound confident while being completely incorrect. Blindly copying and pasting AI-generated content is a recipe for disaster. 🚫 Don't Use AI Without Transparency – If AI is being used in external communications (e.g., customer service chatbots, marketing materials), be upfront about it. Misleading customers or employees can damage trust. 🚫 Don't Let AI Replace Human Creativity & Judgment – AI can assist with content creation, analysis, and automation, but it's no substitute for human expertise. Use it to enhance work—not replace critical thinking. 🚫 Don't Overlook Compliance & Legal Risks – AI introduces regulatory challenges, from intellectual property concerns to data privacy violations. Ensure AI use aligns with laws and industry standards. AI is neither an automatic win nor a ticking time bomb—it all depends on how you manage it. Put the right guardrails in place, educate your team, and treat AI as a tool (not a replacement for human judgment). Your employees are already using AI. It's time to embrace it strategically.

Key takeaways from Mary Meeker's (340 page!) 2025 AI Trends report: 1. The Job market is actively reshaping with data showing a dramatic divergence in the labor market. Since January 2018, job postings in the USA requiring AI skills have skyrocketed by +448%, while non-AI IT job postings have declined by -9%. 2. It's about augmentation AND replacement. While the cliche that "You're not going to lose your job to an AI, but you're going to lose your job to somebody who uses AI" may be somewhat true, it's also true that companies are exploring agents to perform work, and this will have an impact on human jobs. HR and L&D need to really kick upskilling and integration into gear, empowering the workforce to use AI as a tool for productivity. 3. Company mandates on AI use are becoming the norm. Leading tech companies are no longer suggesting AI adoption - they're requiring it. Shopify now considers "reflexive AI usage" a "baseline expectation" for all employees. Duolingo is officially "AI-first," stating that AI use will be part of performance reviews and that new headcount will only be approved if a team cannot first automate its work. AI strategy starts at the top and leaders need to lead by example. 4. Employees are already seeing the benefits of AI - a survey of employed U.S. adults found that over 72% of those using AI chatbots at work say the tools are "extremely" or "very" helpful for doing things more quickly and improving the quality of their work. No surprise there, with the exception that perhaps the number should be higher than 72%. 5. The next generation of talent is AI-Native. Today's students are already leveraging AI for career readiness. A survey of 18-24 year-olds showed top use cases for ChatGPT include starting projects, summarizing texts, and career-related writing. Recruitment and onboarding strategies must adapt to a talent pool that expects AI tools from day one. So what does this all mean for HR and Talent leaders? This report signals a clear need to: 🚀 Rethink job descriptions & skill requirements - are you hiring for AI literacy? 🚀 Transform L&D - is your upskilling strategy focused on experiential learning and practical AI application or is it limited to online learning? 🚀 Update performance management - how will you measure and reward effective AI usage? 🚀 Adapt recruiting - how are you preparing to attract and retain an AI-native workforce? I don't think you can afford to take a "wait and see" approach. What are you and your company doing to get ahead and take full advantage of the benefits AI has to offer? Check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/ed7j4Wi7 #AI #FutureOfWork #HumanResources #TalentAcquisition #Leadership