Chapter 1: The AI Revolution in HR: Future-proofing Your Workforce

AI is a wide-growing technology that is turning out to be an essential component of modern business operation processes. During the last few years, AI has also become very popular in the area of HRM. AI technologies can support the work of HR managers in various ways: enhancing the recruitment process, improving employee performance management, and assisting them in making decisions. Brooks (1991) believes that the AI technology status quo can be assessed from three levels, namely, the basic support layer and platform framework layer, as well as the domain-based technology layer. Amidst this, it can be indicated that the realm of jobs in the current decade is definitely characterised by the information revolution. It seems that its associated technologies are infusing society to such a degree that an anticipated fourth industrial revolution could have been suggested (Xu et al., 2018). Klaus Schwab behind the formulation of the principle of the fourth industrial revolution, the former secretary of the WEF (World Economic Forum, 2018), order to portray the progressive expansion in digitalised revolution (that started towards the finish of a century ago) that is described by an intertwining innovation authentically bridging the borders between the physical, advanced, and natural (Schwab, 2017). In this fourth industrial revolution, many relevant technological forces are at work (e.g. three-dimensional printing, quantum physics, computing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and other alternative procedures of energy technology, to name a few) (O’Reilly et al., 2018). However, one in particular stands among the most prominent emerging technologies with the potential to reconfigure current business functioning – artificial intelligence (hereafter AI), which is catching a lot of attention in mass media, academic research, and industry. Usually, AI, which is an umbrella term defined by John McCarthy in 1955, comprises a variety of computational procedures capable of closely imitating humanised progressions so that they may be considered precisely brilliant (e.g. processing vast volumes of information quickly in order to discover, associate, and patterns prediction) (Wisskirchen et al., 2017). AI is so prevalent that organisations are looking for opportunities where they can use AI or what their AI strategy is. In addition, a global study of 85% of executives revealed that they were likely to invest significantly in AI technology over the upcoming few years (Pallathadka et al., 2023). Moreover, this technology is forecasted to revolutionise the world of industry in the current decade (Pereira et al., 2023). Several study reports proclaimed that the potential assistance of AI lay behind its (sort-of) ability to revolutionise organisations, industries, and society (Lee et al., 2023). Overall, AI can be envisaged as a transformative technology since AI will change how and what we do in society (Pavaloaia & Necula, 2023).