HOT TOPIC: THE ROLE OF AI IN HR
It’s a question on the minds of people professionals everywhere: What’s the right role of AI in and around HR? When implemented properly, AI can transform HR departments’ operations, enabling them to focus more on strategic initiatives rather than being bogged down in administrative tasks by automating routine tasks, analysing large datasets, and providing insights. While AI technology and its capabilities offer many significant benefits, it also introduces risks that HR teams must carefully manage. In this Humanostics PI Update, we take a closer look at what AI in HR entails and the benefits and challenges associated with its implementation.
Benefits of AI in HR
AI offers numerous advantages to HR teams, enabling them to operate more efficiently and strategically: AI can streamline HR processes by automating repetitive and mundane tasks, such as data entry, scheduling interviews, and processing payroll. This automation reduces the time and effort required for these tasks, allowing HR professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives that drive organisational success. AI can also tailor recruitment processes to match candidates with the right roles based on their skills and experiences or customise employee development programs. HR teams can also leverage AI to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, scaling their efforts without a proportional resource increase. This allows for more effective workforce management and better talent acquisition processes, as AI can quickly analyse trends and predict future needs. Lastly, AI-generated data insights empower HR teams to make more informed decisions. By analysing patterns in employee performance, engagement, and turnover, AI provides actionable insights that help HR professionals optimise their strategies. Whether it’s talent acquisition or workforce management, AI ensures that decisions are based on accurate, real-time data, leading to better outcomes.
Known Risks of AI in HR
When considering the use of AI, ask yourself whether it will make your decisions better or just faster? While AI technology and its capabilities offer many significant benefits, it also introduces risks that HR teams must carefully manage.
- Privacy and security: AI systems often handle sensitive employee information, customer data, and company records, making them a potential cyberattack target. HR departments must ensure that their AI tools comply with data protection laws and employ robust security measures to protect against unauthorised access.
- Compliance and legal considerations: AI tools must comply with existing regulations, particularly employment law and data protection. HR teams also need to stay updated on laws that govern the use of AI in the workplace to avoid potential legal issues. These may include regulations related to employee data protection, equal employment opportunity, and workplace discrimination.
- Bias: One of the most significant risks of AI in HR is the potential for biased decision-making. If the AI software is trained on biased or incomplete data, it may perpetuate existing inequalities, such as biased hiring practices based on those sources. This can lead to discriminatory outcomes, exposing the organisation to legal challenges and undermining efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.
- Ethical concerns: Broader ethical concerns are associated with using AI in HR, including transparency about how AI decisions are made and accountability for those decisions. There’s also the risk of discrimination, especially if AI tools are not carefully monitored and audited. HR teams must ensure that AI is used responsibly, with clear guidelines on its application, to avoid unethical practices. In 2014, Amazon built an AI hiring system that quickly learned to favour men because it was trained on resumes from mostly male candidates. It penalised words like “women’s” and downgraded graduates of women’s colleges. The project was abandoned, but the message was clear: letting machines make hiring decisions comes with consequences.
Behavioral Science Earns HR Trust Points
Behavioral science doesn’t leave room for guessing and bias. It measures observable traits that predict how people think, act, and perform at work. At PI, we have decades of data showing that behavioral fit drives measurable outcomes like improved performance, engagement, and retention. From a quantitative standpoint, PI’s assessments demonstrate strong predictive validity, meaning the traits measured are statistically linked to job success across industries. On the qualitative side, PI clients consistently report higher hiring confidence, stronger culture alignment, and more meaningful conversations with candidates. HR professionals who ground talent strategies in behavioral data are better positioned to lead AI adoption with confidence and fairness. When HR integrates behavioral science, employees are more likely to trust the process, building the transparency and psychological safety that AI often lacks.
AI Is Not the Enemy, But It’s Not the Only Answer
Behavioral science isn’t a counterpoint to AI; it’s the foundation that ensures AI adoption strengthens, not undermines, your culture. AI can automate admin tasks, summarise notes, and identify trends in engagement data. But the decisions about people, the human calls, should rest on science HR leaders can defend. If you want to know how to implement AI in hiring without losing control, start with a behavioral framework. Use AI for scale and support, but let behavioral data guide your judgment when it comes to people, and make that clear to your candidates and your employees. That’s how you improve employee experience and maintain trust- and now you have a talent strategy that’s both modern and human-first. For more tips on how to navigate AI adoption, check out the new “HR’s playbook for the AI era” from The Predictive Index.
'GETTING STARTED WITH PI' WEBINAR
If you are new to PI, don’t miss our next ‘Getting Started with PI’ webinar on December 4th at 9:00 am CET. The webinar is designed for new users of the PI methodology and software, and attendees will receive a high-level overview of talent optimisation, the PI assessments, and provides a brief overview of practical applications within the workplace. Sign up for the webinar HERE or by sending an email to training@humanostics.com.
WEBINARS FOR PI PRACTITIONERS
Looking to build on or refresh your PI knowledge? Join one of our free 45-minute webinars for people who are certified in PI, completely free of charge. Topics include ‘How to Give Great PI Feedback’, ‘Inclusive Teams Start with PI’, Make Talent Decisions with PI CA’, and ‘Profile the Job Like a Pro with PI JA’, as well as 2-hour refresher sessions if you’d like a quick brush-up of the basics of the PI assessments and their application. Find dates and sign up HERE.
PI SOFTWARE PRO-TIP: FILTER DATA IN LIST VIEWS
As a PI Software user, you are probably already familiar with the list view you see when clicking on a folder or choosing ‘View All’ on the dashboard cards for Recently Completed or Pending Assessments. But have you noticed the Filter button above the tables? You can filter for categories (Employee, Candidate or Other), people who have completed the BA or CA, assessments administered by yourself, recently completed assessments, or specific reference profiles. This is especially useful for software administrators who can use the Administration button to the left to perform bulk actions like moving multiple people to a different folder, re-categorising them when onboarding or offboarding, or associating candidates with a job.
