Even when using AI responsibly at work, we also need to make sure we’re bringing our human experience to the table. ADP’s Kasara Weinrich and Helena Almeida discuss an employee question that goes beyond the em dash — how do we keep our voice front and center when using AI? For more, visit ADP.com/SPARK

Video Transcript:

Kasara Weinrich

So I lead a team of change management professionals and they are all just incredible. Their experience is so broad. They're all, you know, certified in this practice. And I think in their work they're working very individually with certain organizations. And they are a prime example of there are definitely certain elements of their day to day of the deliverables that they have to provide that they're able to lean into AI on, right? Summarize. Summarize the client journey to this point. Right. And they're able to use it meaningfully to to pull out the critical insights. But when it comes to something like change management, having that human connection is the most critical. And so I know me personally after, you know, studying and being around this technology for years, I can immediately spot when it's been used and not infused with someone's voice.

And, and I think there are just not only certain roles in certain functions, but I think for me personally, when you're seeking a human connection or when you're seeking a human response, there are certain times where getting an obviously AI generated em dash filled response is just like, oh, well, that's a bummer.

Helena Almeida

To be fair, I actually do use the em dash normal writing, and my daughter says every time she sees an em dash and something I write, she says, mom, come on, you used AI. So? So to those of us who actually use em dashes, no AI has basically made it impossible for to do it, but I. But I completely take your point because we, I, you know, in the legal team- so we, you know, I support product compliance and we're always working with our product teams to, to help them kind of design and idiate on ADP products.

We can all use AI to help us brainstorm, help us think, help us kind of come up with our own next great idea. But you have to infuse your own experience and context because that's frankly, that's what our employers all have hired us to do, right? They have not hired us to basically relinquish all of that creativity and experience to AI.

Kasara Weinrich
Yeah. And can you think of, though I'm, I'm struggling to think of, you know, a never like a really hard- again there are moments where obviously human connection needs to take the priority. But can you think of whether it's industry or role? Yeah. Is there a never.

Helena Almeida

So for AI in the workplace right. We have some areas that make it that are really challenging to do and to turn over to AI. So AI can be used and is being used responsibly in the recruiting context. But we don't turn over decisions on who to hire to AI exclusively. Right. So so AI can help us look through resumes, but we're going to be looking at, you know, we want humans to recruiters to be looking at the resumes and ultimately making the final decisions because that, you know, turning over the the ultimate decision of of that's of consequence to the worker of like hiring and firing and how much to pay somebody and kind of promotions. Those are all like very, very clearly with the human.

The key is how do you use AI to help maybe accelerate that, improve that process and that outcome. So there are lines in from the legal context. But the interesting thing is I think when I talk to employers, there's also lines that aren't necessarily legally prohibited, but are something that that company has decided it's in their culture not to do.

Right. So we do have clients and we do have, you know, I've talked to a lot of employers who won't use AI for recruiting because they feel like that's the moment that human connection when someone's, you know, or onboarding, when someone's coming on to their company that they really want to make sure is infused with the with the human element.

Kasara Weinrich
That makes sense. And actually in hearing you respond. I think there's something to be said to where if we use recruiting as the example, I trust an organization like ADP to create something in that space because we know our own commitments. We have our, you know, responsible AI use guidelines. We have all of these things that we prioritize ahead of just having technology doing the work.

But I then imagine for some other organizations that may not be leaning into technology for recruitment and maybe just popping some resumes into their platform of choice and asking for a recommendation, and that particular platform might not be trained against bias or trained against all of the things that we prioritize. So there's also maybe part of that conversation there too, where if you're not using a specialized or an organization that is committed to good use, that could maybe begin approaching the never.