AI is an autonomous system that can be taught to imitate and replace human cognitive functions. To put it simply, the machine completely replaces human intervention and interaction. IA, on the other hand, plays more of an assistive role by leveraging AI to enhance human intelligence, rather than replace it.

What can IA do for HR?

When it comes to IA, there’s certainly nothing to worry about, and in fact there is a massive opportunity for HR to embrace the access to the data insights that can be generated. There’s so much data that flows around an organisation; there’s data in exit feedback, goal feedback, performance feedback; it’s everywhere. There’s literally so much content flowing around an organisation that even the best HR team could not possibly process and make sense of it all.

With IA, the machine is not making a decision and doing something about it without consulting you; the machine is just saying “Hey, take a look at this; I think it’s important and so you should pay attention to this”. That’s the whole concept of the augmentation: it’s enhancing not replacing.

A machine can identify trends and process data in order to make our jobs easier, our staff happier, and our businesses more successful. Even with issues like attrition, we can put an algorithm together to assess flight risk in a business. I’ll give you an example. If you’re an HR manager sitting in another office, you might not know that Mary in your accounts team has just moved way out to the suburban outskirts because the rent is cheaper. You don’t actually know that Mary is now taking an extra 1.5 hours to get to work every day and, as a result, her passion for the job is fast fl ailing. Your People Management application helps you to identify that Mary’s address has changed and alerts you that her travel time is now pushed out to 2.5 hours each day. This may have given you earlier insight into why Mary’s performance may have been slipping and suggested an office transfer or even a salary review.