Back in November of 2022, we saw a massive uptick in AI usage once the early demo of OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched and attracted well over 1 million users within its first 5 days. Since then, AI has been the #1 topic in industry conferences all through 2023. There’s also been a massive uptick in businesses leveraging language AI models. And from the impact of ChatGPT in business alone — it’s clear that this frenzy won’t be slowing down anytime soon. However, AI isn’t anything new — despite the recent surge in popularity, it’s been developing in the background for 45 years. All the while, we’ve been using it across business and various corners of society for decades. Only in recent years has it started trickling down the layers of our society and business, and made obvious the true, profound impact and possibilities there are around AI in our day-to-day lives. AI and HR Teams everywhere will be impacted- and HR teams are no exception. This means HR leaders are going to have to leverage this new tech to stay ahead of the curve and remain at the top of their industry. That’s why we invited 3 AI-savvy HR leaders — Natalie Shields (Chief People Officer at Mosaic group), Katie Obi (CPO at Advanced) and Michael Piker (Global DE&I and Reward Director at Flutter) — to talk about their thoughts on what HR teams can be on the lookout for in the AI space in 2024 and beyond. Check out the full webinar here.6 AI Trends HR Leaders Should Be Ready For 1. Recruitment and retention opportunities with AI “AI has been very, very helpful when it comes to how we think about how we automate our recruitment processes,” says Natalie Shields. “How we screen candidates, as well as how we think about learning, being able to identify people's skills and being able to create opportunities of growth and mobility within the organisation.”Using AI tools in attraction and retention isn’t new, but it’s always wise for HR leaders to be aware of the newest technology that helps to attract the best candidates most efficiently. Natalie goes on to say “Nina AI has been great was one of the first ones I started using actually, which is an Onboarding Tool. Kolok hasn't been so bad. I'm a massive fan of Eightfold as well.” 2. Tracking people analytics will be more automated According to YuLife x YouGov’s 2023 survey, 23% of HR leaders are already using automated dashboards, yet 73% of HR want to be more data-driven in their people strategy during 2024. With that said there’s no doubt going to be an uptick in using AI for improving the acquisition and use of people data, and new tools are going to be on the market soon enough. Katie touches on how using AI for tracking people data has been really helping her organisation “bring those stories to life — the insights to life — in a way that can really equip managers the right information at their fingertips.” The new YuScore is a perfect example of using AI to automatically track data around your employees’ wellbeing. Find out more about how you can start automating your people data here.3. AI and DE&I Michael Piker spoke in our webinar about the role of AI and how it will affect, and is currently affecting, DE&I in business — especially when it comes to data.“I'll be very blunt,” he begins, “young white males code these algorithms in Silicon Valley, and it doesn't represent diversity at large. So my premise here is you need to use multiple chatbots to get some sense of decorum and sense of truth.”Michael goes on to say how things have been relatively unchanged in this regard for 30 years. However, there are great innovations in the works, and various parts of the world developing new AI technology that will contribute to the revolution. But where do you start in using this technology and how can it aid in your DE&I targets? “If you start your journey in DE&I about disclosing demographic data — we use Workday for example at Flutter — that's the first hurdle that you have to leap over,” he explains. “So typically, you look at gender, but it's equally important to look at LGBTQI+, multicultural and accessibility. Getting people to disclose the data first is part of the challenge, but it's so important to have the demographic data to do something with it.” Next, Michael says you can use an analytics tool on top — Power BI, Tableau, Cruncher — to track certain data like the trajectory or progress in women getting into senior leadership roles and making sure you’re adequately recruiting those with neurodiverse needs as well. “At my recent quarters, we had a gender poll, 40% top of the house, and you can look at internal labour math analysis to determine hiring progression, appointments,” he begins. “In one page you can determine how your evidence is proving your intent and how it's coming to life. I use empirical data and evidence to drive outcome rather than just talking about it.”While DE&I in AI is improving, it’s still only the beginning. There are plenty of bumps that need to be smoothed out, and biases to be aware of, but Michael is optimistic about the future outcomes.“ChatGPT was first-gen,” he says. “A lot of the tech platforms we talked about are second gen so they’ve built from AI from the ground up. Third Gen is what I call a leap of faith.”In other words: “AI is coming big time."4. Challenges with ethics and governance “The amazing thing about AI is that we're able to receive so much data as we feed it, we're able to get some analytical information,” Natalie begins. “It can help us predict certain things. The most important thing we just have to be mindful of is what we then do with that data.” By the same token, Natalie notes how bad the AI bias is. While it’s most likely better at reducing bias than humans are — it’s still not perfect. “I'm very, very much a fan of what AI can do,” says Natalie. “Because it's not always easy to recognise where there is some bias in some of our data.”“At the end of the day,” adds Katie “The humans in the process are accountable for the outcomes, the ramifications and the implications, and any penalties associated with that.” This means critical thinking, evaluation and fact-checking are going to be important skills to keep honing as we use AI. 5. Leadership needs to take the reignsAlthough AI tools are already likely integrated into your business in some way, being comfortable with it and using it to innovate will be something that needs to start on the leadership level.“They need to be initiative that's really run by CEO, CTOs, legal for sure, Compliance, and of course, your HR team,” says Natalie “So the sensitive information, but at the same time, being encouraging for people to be able to come forward and say okay ‘I'm a marketing person, I'm a product person. I'm a finance person… what are the ways that I think that we can utilise AI in my work to make me more efficient?’. This would be the ROI on the business.” However, this needs to be something the senior leadership teams are driving in the departments, and as a small business, it’s those company owners who have to take the in driving the discussions and implications around AI. Some ways to navigate bringing this into practice is by setting up some type of cross-functional committee around AI in the workplace, and bringing in providers and data protection offers to dive deep into understanding what is allowed in your jurisdiction and how to best approach it. Because it varies wildly and can become a huge liability, especially for global companies where lines can become a bit more blurry. 6. L&D UpskillingThere are many ways AI is starting to be used in terms of professional development and upskilling. Michael recounts that one thing his company is doing is: “incorporating AI into nudges for managers in terms of having performance-related conversations,” he says. “People feel that anxiety as a hiring manager, or as a people manager during those periods too, so it can really help to kind of prompt and nudge, okay, what kind of themes are you wanting to try and portray? These are some ways that you can give some advice and feedback.” Michael goes on to explain how this also is relevant in the sales world when you’re reviewing virtual sales calls — some tools will give you feedback afterwards. It will highlight the amount of filler words you used, energy levels and more to help improve their skills over time. And that goes even further into helping teams upskill on their own products and business knowledge.When should you start? Should it be the bleeding edge or the cutting edge that you get involved in AI? For many small businesses especially, it’s not always a focus to delve into AI especially as it’s still growing. So what should you do? According to the experts, waiting could do more harm than good.“In some ways, having a policy or not deciding whether to have a policy or not is almost a moot point,” says Natalie. “Because your employees are probably already using it in pockets and it's really difficult to be able to control that. You have to kind of embrace that and work out what are your core principles in terms of ethics and where are the lines for the organisation.”Natalie urges HR leaders to “Dive in, learn early — think about how you can implement it in your workplace.”“I would highly recommend that everyone gets ahead of this curve and is at the forefront of driving this,” agrees Katie. “This is the future of the business. Educate yourself on when not to use it and start small, and you can build from there. And you will I think you'll enjoy the journey that we're all going on.”Check out the full webinar here.