Inside the push to make workers trust and use AI

Dragos Condrea via Getty ImagesEarlier this year, email marketing service provider Omnisend launched a salary-bump initiative to reward employees who meaningfully adopt AI and use it in ways that demonstrate significant business value.“We don’t want to fire anyone to replace with AI,” said Rytis Lauris, the company’s CEO and co-founder.Under the program, two finance specialists at Omnisend used vibe coding, first with OpenAI models and then later with Anthropic Claude, to build an AI agent that would take on many traditionally human jobs. The agent scans monthly financial transactions, maps transactions to invoices, identifies missing invoices and receipts, determines which employee’s credit card was used and reports collection status to the finance team.With the AI agent, the finance team automated 85% of the invoice collection process.“It saves tons of hours every month,” Lauris said.Omnisend’s project is one example of how businesses are pushing employees to use generative AI and trying to erode some of the fears associated with the technology.Related:Siemens, Nvidia deploy industrial AI to reduce engineering effortEven so, many employees fear AI could soon displace workers or become a tool for employers to monitor and discipline their staff. Employee concerns like these have led to the enactment of new state laws governing the use of AI in the workplace.California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 30 signed a bill into law prohibiting employers in the state from using AI as the sole basis for firing or disciplining an employee. The law requires employers to validate or corroborate an AI system's recommendation before disciplining or firing someone. Newsom also approved a law requiring organizations to disclose when their use of AI results in mass layoffs, relocations or business closures. The law amends the Cal-WARN Act, which requires companies to provide 60 days’ notice before a mass layoff. With the new law, companies must write: “This notice is for a technology displacement” at the top of their disclosure.Encouraging useLaws such as these show that employees' fears are, to some degree, validated. Regardless, many employees don’t have a choice when their employer decides to use AI or any new technology.For the past two years, Pet Food Experts drivers have used commercial fleet safety and video telematics company Netradyne’s Driver•I HD dash cam AI system to reduce accidents.“Our cost per accident has probably dropped about $10,000 plus this year because now we’re totally ingrained,” said Phil Young, director of safety, security and compliance at the company. “We’re seeing less severe accidents and more driver awareness.”Related:OpenAI, Google partnership targets enterprise model choiceHowever, the beginning of the move to the technology was filled with challenges, Young said.He recounted that he had to spend several Saturdays convincing drivers that the AI camera system would be safer for them.“There was a lot of trepidation among the drivers,” Young said, adding that even though drivers were used to cameras, this one was different. “We went in there, and we were Frankenstein's monster, and they were all the villagers with the pitchforks and the knives.”He added that even after showing the employees the gamification aspect of the AI camera system, some drivers were quick to point out that their lives were not a game. With Netradyne, drivers receive a video game score: they start with 1,000 points and can keep it by continuing to drive safely. Drivers’ safety scores drop the more unsafely they drive.“Everybody is going to get a driver score,” Young said. He added that the score decreases with the severity of the safety infraction a driver commits. For example, a hard brake is more severe than rolling through a stop sign. “What the AI does is it takes all that information, and it has metrics that it provides for you, and it creates a driver’s score. Our goal was to have everybody at 850 within a year."Related:How payroll giant ADP practices AI governance and human oversight“We let the people know that ‘This is going to happen, and if you are uncomfortable with it, feel free to go because I can guarantee this, there’s a push for this in the industry, and you’re probably going to end up somewhere else that already has cameras in place,’” Young said.Early use in educationBusinesses’ push for employees to use AI is echoed by a recent move by the University of Phoenix in the academic world.The online university is trying to cultivate early adopters by providing students with AI resources and opportunities.“People in the workforce need to learn to use these tools, and so our job is to teach them the tools, and we take that very seriously,” said John Woods, chief academic officer and provost.The university has launched several initiatives under which students use AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.In July, the university partnered with OpenAI to integrate the AI vendor's tools into its education and career development program for adult learners and to boost faculty productivity. OpenAI also provided expert judges for the University of Phoenix’s inaugural AI Innovation showcase. During the event, students demonstrated how they would use AI tools to work on a workplace-relevant project."[We are] helping our students upskill to be good users of different AI tools in context, not AI for AI’s sake,” Woods said. “But with AI use in the context of various work settings, work problems become more effective, more efficient and then, importantly to us, students become discerning users of AI.”He added that the school’s main concern is not just certifying that employees are using AI tools and are AI-ready for the workplace. It’s also about ensuring that they use AI responsibly.“Our policy really leans into ethical and responsible use of AI so that people are using AI to be more effective but also being able to be very discerning about how they use it,” he said.The need for better outcomesThe results employees achieve from using AI technology are also important.“We want the AI to help produce better outcomes and not just faster outcomes,” said Helena Almeida, payroll and human capital management giant ADP’s vice president, assistant general counsel and chief AI legal officer.“If we all agree that our goal is better decisions, better outcomes, faster, and not just faster outcomes, and that's really where our focus should be, not just on usage and adoption numbers, but what other work is being done that wasn't being done before, and the quality accomplished using AI,” she said.About the AuthorNews Writer, AI BusinessEsther Shittu has covered AI technologies and industry trends since 2021. As co-host of the Targeting AI podcast, she talks with experts, thought leaders and practitioners exploring critical AI developments. Before AI Business, she wrote for SearchEnterpriseAI, the New York Daily News, Bklyner and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. When she's not diving deep into the world of AI, she spends her time on passion projects and raising her three daughters.