AI in the workplace: Balancing the risks and benefits
Using AI to assist with employment-related functions, including recruitment and talent management, has clear business benefits: AI can automate repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on more strategic work. It can also analyze vast amounts of data quickly and, if properly implemented, help mitigate the risk of human error and biases. The recent growth in employers’ use of AI shows that organizations are embracing those advantages.
However, employers need to carefully balance the benefits of using AI against the potential legal and reputational risks. AI can lead to ineffective or discriminatory decisions, such as by favoring or disfavoring job candidates on the basis of race, gender, age, or other protected characteristics, or by disadvantaging applicants or employees with disabilities. For example, an AI-assisted interview tool that uses verbal data to make hiring recommendations may disadvantage candidates with a disability impacting their speech. Or an AI recruitment tool may be trained on biased data that tends to favor younger rather than older candidates.
Employers that use AI tools for employment purposes may face claims of discrimination under longstanding antidiscrimination laws, however, regulators and policymakers are increasingly focused on updating the legal framework. In the U.S., some states and localities have passed or proposed laws that impose restrictions on the use of AI in the workplace, such as requiring employers to conduct bias audits or to provide advance notice and obtain consent before deploying an AI tool. Employers that use AI systems in the workplace should develop a compliance strategy that balances the risks and benefits of AI and that prioritizes transparency, fairness, and data security.