The rise of generative AI at work brings excitement, uncertainty, and a touch of paranoia, from fears of job security, to leadership’s ethical concerns, and worries of its power. 

David Wishon, SVP of talent management at Lionbridge, says the key to successfully rolling out AI at work is surprisingly simple. “We started with carbonara recipes, and what dogs should you have in a New York apartment,” Wishon said during a panel on AI adoption at From Day One’s Boston conference. “We started with fun, and then that created this momentum.”

This playful approach was central to Lionbridge’s strategy for demystifying AI. The company addressed employee fears about AI by giving each employee a goal to accomplish with generative AI for the year, says Wishon. 

Lionbridge trained 4,500 of its 6,500 employees in a few months by starting with low-stakes, personal use cases for AI, before transitioning to work-related tasks. “It was really just trying to get that sense of fun, that sense of permission,” he said. 

Demystification and the Soft Launch

While Lionbridge opted to introduce AI with structured, company-wide training, other organizations embraced a subtler approach. 

“Ours was almost more like a soft launch,” Michelle Randall-Berry, the global head of talent at Teradyne, said. “We didn’t really tell anybody we were doing it. We just did it.”

Teradyne’s talent acquisition teams and learning department quietly integrated AI with gentle “nudges,” such as personalized course recommendations for employees and automated messages to potential hires. 

“It was kind of more of a quiet, ‘wow, believe it or not, we’re using AI, everyone,’” Randall-Berry said about Teradyne’s subtle approach to AI integration.

Streamlining Workflows and Enhancing Performance

Ankit Saxena, the global head of people insights and HR technology at PPG, says AI’s most significant impact in most organizations is increased efficiency. PPG, an international manufacturing company, created its own version of ChatGPT called “Chat PPG” for internal use, providing employees with unbiased, vetted information. 

PPG accelerated its hiring cycle by delegating processes like interview scheduling and candidate screening to artificial intelligence. “Instead of X number of days, it is reduced to X minus 10,” Saxena said.

The benefits of embracing artificial intelligence extend to performance management, a traditionally time-consuming process for managers. “Performance reviews can take several hours,” Marissa Gladstone, the director of sales at Workleap, said. 

AI tools can aggregate an employee’s work, projects, goals, and feedback, into a holistic summary in minutes. This changes the manager’s role from data collector to coach, allowing them to focus on “true relationship building.”

The Human Guardrails: Bias, Fraud, and Burnout

AI integration into organizational processes also brings some inherent risks, particularly around biased algorithms and candidate fraud. All five panelists unanimously agreed that artificial intelligence is most efficient when it assists the hiring process, but doesn’t make final decisions. 

“We determined that we weren't going to use AI for assessment and decisioning of candidate quality,” Wishon stated, pointing to ongoing legal cases such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) vs. iTutor Group in 2022. iTutor agreed to pay a $365,000 settlement after its AI system was found automatically rejecting applications from women over 55 and men over 60. 

Saxena outlined a three-part governance framework used to prevent AI from inheriting bias at PPG: verifying data sources, scrutinizing vendor algorithms, and continuously evaluating outcomes for discriminatory patterns.

AI is creating a new frontier of fraud that hiring managers must look out for. Wishon described “impostors or dreamers” who use large language models to fabricate resumes and answer interview questions in real time. 

Wishon also points out the rise of “collusion,” where data centers use artificial intelligence to imitate individual candidates. In response, Lionbridge now uses identity and email verification checks to filter for “viable, authentic, accurate candidates.”

Wishon says the most unexpected challenge he’s faced working with artificial intelligence is what he terms “AI burnout.” He says the initial efficiency gains AI brings have a lifespan and cannot accelerate human-centric elements like socialization, change management, or navigating company culture. 

AI as Your Sparring Partner, Not Your Replacement

Despite the challenges of integrating artificial intelligence into company processes, AI works best as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement for human intelligence, creativity, and intuition, the panelists agreed. 

AI’s role is to empower, not replace, the human workforce. Gladstone, who admits to her own moments of fear, now sees AI as an essential partner. “AI is not going to replace you. People who use AI will,” Gladstone said. “AI is your first draft. AI is your sparring partner. It is something that helps you develop some of those ideas. It takes away that analysis paralysis.”

“Just dip your toe in,” said Randall-Berry, who recently coached a nervous team member on using Copilot to refine a memo. That same team member couldn’t get enough of AI once she got past her initial hesitation. “She was absolutely floored,” Randall-Berry said. “And then she kept asking it, ‘Can you do this? Can you add this?”

Ironically, the ultimate destination of AI integration is a profoundly more human workforce, where employees focus on tasks that require a human touch, while AI handles repetitive, manual tasks. Less administration, more human connection. Fewer processes, more creativity. 

Ade Akin covers workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.

(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)