One of my coworkers years ago used to joke that HR stood for hardly responsive. That’s insulting to hard-working, effective Human Resources professionals, of which there are many.
At the same time, many of us know exactly what my old workmate was talking about. You reach out with a question or challenge and either receive no response at all or a response that’s wrapped in hedging corporate speak. Sometimes there is so much bureaucracy in receiving a response from the HR department that by the time they get back to you, your question has been answered or your problem has been solved.
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a way to provide faster responses to employees that are more knowledgeable and, ironically, more human. A study from JAMA Internal Medicine found that a panel of three licensed healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses to medical questions to the response given by a human physician. “Overall, the panel preferred ChatGPT’s responses to those given by a human 79 percent of the time. ChatGPT responses were also rated good or very good quality 79 percent of the time, compared with 22 percent of doctors’ responses, and 45 percent of the ChatGPT answers were rated empathic or very empathic, compared with just 5 percent of doctors’ replies,” Juta Medical Brief reported.
The same seems to be true in the world of HR. A survey by Servicenow found that more than 50 percent of workers trust AI more than HR pros.
A More Sensitive Bot vs. an Insensitive Person
The assumption is usually that a machine is less sensitive than a person. However, it depends on the machine, including who developed it and the particular human the machine is being compared to. A machine that was programmed by sensitive people, or with data from sensitive people, likely would beat an insensitive human every day of the week.
Plus, though AI is liable to take on the sensitivities of the people who created it, it probably is still less likely to get angry or become defensive the way an insensitive person will when challenged.
The AI system likely would respond to an employee’s anger, “I’m sorry you feel that way and sorry you had to experience that. How can I help you?”
On the flip side, an insensitive person working in HR might say, “Well, we’re all dealing with that. I don’t know that I have a solution for you. This is just the way it is right now.”
The human also may be more likely to pass the buck: “You need to talk to your manager about that.”
The AI system, if it’s programmed well, might offer solutions to a challenge the employee can try on their own, without having to bother their manager or pass on to a manager who, themselves, may be insensitive.
The AI system might say, for instance, “I’m sorry you’re going through the difficulty of dealing with a coworker you don’t feel is ‘carrying their weight.’ Try speaking directly to them in a non-accusatory way, in a way that shows you want to collaborate more with them and you value what you feel they can do for your team.”
AI’s Role in Brainstorming Career Growth Plans
An employee’s manager or an HR professional often comes to conversations with employees about career growth with greater biases than an AI bot. As noted, AI bots carry the biases of their creators. However, it seems they do so to a lesser extent than a human being. An AI bot capable of generative learning can information it is presented with, such as the wide range of people who have been successful in a job role, and then revise its understanding of what is needed to succeed in that role. A human may be capable of doing the same but often does not.
For example, I have noticed that even in our “evolved” society of 2025, men in the corporate world are still more often thought of as high-level thinkers and delegators while women are more likely to be thought of as lower-level workhorses. When women get elevated to higher-level roles, I have noticed that the budget for junior employee(s) working under them is frequently cut back or eliminated. This has happened to me, and I noticed it happen to at least one other woman.
An AI system could be programmed not to take demographic information about a person into consideration at all when making career advancement recommendations.
As AI becomes more refined and powerful, I don’t panic. I breathe easier because I never felt humans were the most sensitive, sophisticated creatures. Maybe it’s time to give an AI bot a chance.
Are you using AI to enhance your employee experience? If so, how?