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When new employees join the content recommendation technology company Taboola, many of them ask to speak with Sasha, who they became friends with during the hiring process.
But Sasha doesn't exist – at least not in human form.
Sasha is a chatbot that the company uses to manage candidate interview schedules.
“It's been so seamless that it's so funny when new employees come to Taboola and say, 'Can I meet Sasha?'” says Kristy Sundjaja, Taboola's chief people officer. “Sasha doesn't exist, because Sasha is actually a bot.”
According to experts at HR Dive, artificial intelligence is being used across a variety of HR functions, from automating tasks like schedule management to analyzing data and answering internal questions. And that's just the beginning.
“We're just scratching the surface,” Sunjaya said.
Taboola is already using AI for talent analytics to provide basic information about employees by filtering data on start dates, promotions, engagement, learning and development, performance, and management.
This will enable Sundjaja’s team to go deeper into trend analysis and predict the company’s employee turnover and success rates.
“I think there are jobs that AI can take over from the HR department,” Sunjaya said.
But it's not as simple as just handing over certain tasks to AI, Sundarja explains. For language modeling at scale (“FAQ-type AI solutions” or chatbots), companies need to ensure their data is clean and unbiased. Otherwise, “garbage in, garbage out,” he says, when it comes to model quality.
While there are some jobs “where AI can take over HR functions,” there are others that can't be automated or require human intervention, she said.
“How can we use AI to make our jobs better and not become like robots?” Sunjaya says. “There's a lot to learn.”
“One of the challenges is that AI is such a general term,” said Angela Hood, founder and CEO of HR tech AI company ThisWay Global.
“It's important to recognize that artificial intelligence is an umbrella term,” she said.
Hood likened the term “AI” to the word “apparel.”
“Apparel can be a variety of things: shirts, shoes, children's clothing, men's ties. They're all apparel,” Hood said. “When people use the term 'artificial intelligence,' it's a category. I think it gets blurred because people don't understand how to distinguish between them.”
