The idea of AI agents making their way into the workforce has been heavily discussed in the news, industry and every HR and leadership conference I’ve spoken at over the last few months.
As a speaker and facilitator, the topic I’m curious about is how should people managers approach the idea of managing and leading hybrid teams of humans and trained AI agents?
A recent study by Harvard Business School and researchers at Proctor & Gamble took a look at how the humans in human/AI creative teams feel about their work and collaboration with AI agents. The findings were fascinating!
Finding One: Expertise boundaries vanished. As Ethan Mollock (one of the study authors) put it in his post on the paper:
“AI effectively helped people bridge functional knowledge gaps, allowing them to think and create beyond their specialized training, and helped amateurs act more like experts”
Finding Two: People working with AI in a creative context were happier, more engaged and enthusiastic, and less anxious and frustrated.
This second finding is, to me, much more eye opening. This indicates that when used in the right setting with the right boundaries, there are clear teamwork and belonging benefits to considering AI as a teammate.
Taken a step further, this means that people managers will need to take into account the idea that AI will spark feelings of collaboration and teamwork, and not just feel like using a new software. This has implications for leadership development, skill building, HR compliance and many other critical areas for people leadership.
What do you think? Do you see AI as a teammate?