CEOs who send scary AI memos to employees can be more harmful than good.
Over the past few months, some company leaders have been publicised with a surprisingly bleak outlook, predicting that generative AI tools such as Openai's ChatGpt and Google's Gemini will reduce the broad swath of recent university graduates and reduce employment opportunities.
“It doesn't matter if you're a programmer, designer, project manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support representative, sales representative or finance representative. AI is here for you,” the CEO and founder of Freelance-Job site Fiverr wrote in an email to employees she shared on LinkedIn.
Chiefs of other companies, including the boss of chatbot maker humanity and payment provider Klarna, have expressed equally harsh employment forecasts related to AI surges.
“This is unusual,” Johnny Taylor, chairman of the Human Resources Association, told Business Insider, saying that the CEO is usually not that close or pessimistic. “But AI is unusual. There is a fundamental change in how work is done.”
AI adoption begins
Last year, 78% of workers said that their organizations used AI in at least one feature, starting with 55% in 2023, according to an AI-centric survey released in March by global management consulting firm McKinsey.
The rapid adoption of corporate AI tests CEO communication. Transparency is key to building trust with employees, but leadership experts telegraph the expectations of fate and darkness, saying that no matter how integrity you are, it can sink morale and hinder productivity.
As an employee, “You use so many cognitive and emotional resources to deal with that threat,” said Carrie Chernis, a professor at Rutgers University who studies emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Increased turnover is another possible outcome. “If everyone is nervous about their job, they'll start looking for another job,” he said.
The arrival of AI to the workplace coincides with a sharp decline in employee trust. Last month, the share of workers reporting a positive business outlook for six months fell to 44.1% from 48.2% the previous year, setting the last new, low record in February, according to career platform Glassdoor.
Heidi Brooks, a senior lecturer at organizational behavior at Yale University's School of Business Administration, said that in a time of great uncertainty and upset, voices of fear and panic about AI can increase anxiety and increase anxiety.
“People's nervous systems are already very defensive and jacked,” she said.
Balance
Still, according to Chris Yeh, general partner at Blitzscaling Ventures, who co-authored two books on startup leadership with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Blitzscaling Ventures, the company boss should not remain completely mums if they really anticipate major AI-driven disruptions.
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“Some jobs will probably be at risk,” he said.
According to leadership experts, the best approach is for CEOs to balance by being honest about what changes they foresee, while helping employees respond constructively.
“What leaders really need to understand is that they need to take responsibility for AI into the workforce,” said Sarah Franklin, CEO of human resource management platform Lattice.
However, balanced communication may not be enough. Company leaders may also need to equip their employees with training, resources and moral support, Shrm's Taylor said. “We see companies doing it more and more,” he said.
Predictive stupidity
Gary Rich, founder of executive leadership company Rich Leadership, suggests that employees talk about AI, including how the company's Chiefs talk to Wall Street analysts.
“You don't make things, and you don't guess,” he said.
Anyway, it's not easy to predict accurately about seemingly transformative technologies, and can cause reputational damage, Rich added. History is littered with false predictions, such as those who thought television would replace radio, and how e-commerce would kill brick and mortar retail.
“In the end, when they're wrong, it erodes their own credibility,” he said.
The actual impact on AI employment has been mixed up to date. Last year, 13% of CEOs voted by professional services company Pricewaterhousecoopers said they have cut their staffing due to generation AI over the past 12 months, with 17% attributing the increase in the workforce over that period.
Melissa Valentine, a senior fellow at Stanford University who studies the use of AI companies at Stanford University, said workers should consider speeding up how technology is applied to their field, given how prominent and widespread it is. However, there's no need to panic as AI doesn't change the way it operates overnight.
“It takes a lot of work to automate agents,” she said.
