Lattice and AI Employees: Leading the Way or Moving Too Fast?

July 2024 

Many workplace analysts and observers feel that one of the key skills needed for employees and managers moving forward will be the ability to successfully work with and co-exist with new technology, specifically with new forms of AI technology, like Generative AI.  

Recently the HR technology company Lattice took this idea a step further and potentially closer to being more realistic – by announcing plans to establish “employee” records in their internal HR systems for these AI co-workers.  

The Announcement 

“The conversation around digital workers has been theoretical – until now. The AI workforce is here, and Lattice believes that we need to fully understand what it looks like to integrate AI employees into the workforce to make sure we create transparent, responsible practices around hiring AI,” said Sarah Franklin, Lattice CEO. “That’s why we want to be the first to bring an AI employee through all the same steps as a human one – onboarding, goal setting, receiving feedback – to uncover the challenges we’ll face with the AI workforce, and start to come up with practical solutions for our customers.” 

In addition to giving AI employees employee records, the Lattice platform will fully integrate digital workers into their HRIS product; adding them to org charts, so teams and departments understand where they sit, and why; onboarding these employees to ensure they understand their roles and their employers’ brands; and offering them trainings as required for their roles. AI workers will have managers and will be held accountable to specific goals and standards using Lattice’s platform, so employers can measure and assess their performance like with any other employee.” 

The Concept 

To set up these AI-powered assistants or co-workers in internal company systems just like everyone else would serve to more fully incorporate them into the flow of work and in HR processes as if they were a regular employee. 

When it was announced, we commented on a recent Workplace Minute episode that this development certainly raises some interesting thoughts and questions, even if it smacks a little of being announced more for publicity than for truly important and influential innovation. But putting that aside, it is an interesting and natural development. In many ways it makes perfect sense to use the organization’s current system of managing employees – with performance reviews, training, feedback, yearly bonuses and so on –to manage AI assistants. Why not think about AI assistants like their human counterparts inside the organization? 

Soon, most teams will include AI co-workers in some capacity. This could be an AI note-taker who keeps the minutes of meetings and provides summaries, the project administrator who reminds every one of their tasks and generates status reports, or a PowerPoint designer who rapidly puts together presentations for the team. But over time this will evolve, and some AI assistants will naturally take on more complex tasks and perhaps even take on supervisory roles until having a boss or a manager who is an AI, will not seem strange. 

Our Conclusion 

This is a novel idea. It is interesting, and something to keep an eye on moving forward as more organizations adopt digital assistants and AI co-workers into their workflows. 

After Lattice received a ton of online pushback and criticism about this plan to establish AI co-workers as employees in internal systems, they stepped back from the plan to reconsider. Upon learning that Lattice decided to step back from this idea, we at H3 HR Advisors were disappointed. In our view, their reversal is surprising given that the original idea of managing AI workers similarly to human ones in a set of HR tools did not seem all that wild – given the absolute proliferation of AI technology in almost every workplace in the last few years. 

Most workplace analysts and observers feel that one of the key skills needed for employees and managers moving forward will be the ability to successfully work with and co-exist with new technology, specifically with new forms of AI technology, like Generative AI. The thinking goes that the most successful workers and organizations will be the ones who can leverage these powerful new technologies to their fullest capacity. 

Most organizations are already experimenting with AI-like assistants like chatbots and meeting assistants. Some AIs may indeed become so capable and sophisticated that managing them similarly to human employees will not just seem novel, it will seem necessary. 

Just because some HR or businesspeople are not ready for that today or haven’t thought about what co-existing with AI co-workers means for the organization, doesn’t mean that the day isn’t coming. AI tools are set to disrupt workplaces in a major way, we’d rather be working in and with organizations that are not pretending that this is not happening. 

Kudos to Lattice for sticking their necks out on this and trying to think about and help your customers prepare for changes that are coming to work and workplaces. We are just sorry you had to be first, and therefore take the heat for whomever follows you.