Summer means fun in the sun during the holidays for employees, but it also means more work to juggle for colleagues back in the office. To make the stress even worse, those returning from vacation are often faced with a mountain of fill-in work, which quickly ruins the good vibes.
Korn Ferry says artificial intelligence could help. The management consulting firm said some companies are starting to use AI agents. or custom botease the burden of managing summer schedules by handling basic communications, scheduling meetings, and performing other administrative tasks while employees are on vacation.
For employers, this approach also helps balance business needs with ensuring workers have the downtime they need to recharge.
“Productivity suffers when someone is out, so having AI figure out what needs to be done while someone is out of the office means the team is taking the least hit,” Brian Ackerman, head of AI strategy and transformation at Korn Ferry, told CBS News. “It’s also very helpful when the person comes back from vacation.”
AI is good at summarizing emails and documents, and the technology can perform that task in place of a manager or senior leader who is on vacation. That way, Ackerman said, team members can avoid confusion while the person is out.
“AI can allow my colleagues to see everything on my plate while I’m gone,” he said.
For example, Ackerman said Claude Cowork, an AI agent designed by Anthropic for “knowledge work,” can synthesize research findings and create documents.
“Reconciling documents, composing a quick email, summarizing meeting notes while the host is on vacation, all of these things happen to be within the realm of AI’s strengths at this point,” Ackerman said. “In the current iteration, these tools will provide data insights to the team to compensate for my absence.”
Indeed, hiring an AI agent over the summer could fuel employee fears that the agent will become disposable, especially in some industries where corporate investment is increasing. lead to dismissal and reduced employment.
On the other hand, using AI in this way can raise privacy concerns, and the technology is also costly for organizations to deploy and use.
Mark Beare, head of consumer business at cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, agrees that employees need to be confident that they can trust that the AI agents that interact with colleagues and customers on their behalf will act competently and professionally.
“Giving administrative control to an AI agent and having it do things or make decisions while you’re not there raises concerns,” he said.
Baer added: “If what you’re asking of a system is inappropriate and there’s no one to fix it, eventually these systems will break down.”
