Fear about AI has permeated workplaces in recent years, with some employees worried about the tech redefining or even taking over their jobs. Taming those fears has largely fallen on HR, but people professionals themselves aren’t exempt from the uncertainty.
According to HR Executive’s recent What’s Keeping HR Up at Night? survey, stress is soaring in the profession—and AI is a key culprit. AI transformation in HR, change management and organizational adoption of AI all ranked among the top five challenges for HR this year.
“There is a lot going on here,” says Lisa Buckingham, global CHRO of Vialto Partners, a leader in workforce mobility, tax and immigration solutions that spun off from PwC. “We need to be thinking about having the right change frameworks, keeping empathy and making sure we’re designing and manifesting the culture we want.”
Buckingham says the still-developing influence of AI on the workplace is chief among the HR concerns keeping her up at night.
In such a dynamic environment, uncertainty will naturally abound, she says, and HR can confront that by strategically considering AI’s impact from all angles. For instance, she’s working to answer these questions:
1. Is technology moving faster than our people can?
The gap between tech acceleration and human assimilation is widening, Buckingham says. HR needs to ensure people have enough time to learn, find support and gain clarity about how their roles are changing and what work will look like in the future.
2. Is AI integration becoming a fear-based initiative?
Buckingham worries that employees are only agreeing to adopt AI out of fear that, if they don’t, their jobs
will be eliminated. “That would be awful,” she says. To counter that, HR can shift the conversation to how AI can function as a true partner to employees.
3. Are employees suffering change fatigue?
From bots to new platforms and updated HRS systems, employees—particularly those leading the transformation charge in the HR function—are going to start to feel the effects of change that isn’t managed strategically.
4. What are the unintended culture shifts brought on by AI?
As AI rewrites workflows, are employees going to lose power and connection to one another? And will culture, inadvertently, become weaker? “Are you not talking to the person next to you because you don’t need to anymore? These are cultural things that we have to worry about,” she says.
5. Is speed overtaking strategy?
HR is under pressure to advance AI integration. Yes, the function needs to move with speed, Buckingham says, but it needs to do so wisely and strategically, with people remaining at the center. “We need to make sure that we have efficiency and empathy,” she says.
6. Are we creating AI haves and have-nots?
Buckingham asks: Is AI strategy being applied uniformly, or are some departments becoming AI-fluent at the expense of others?
7. Are leaders struggling and afraid to admit it?
Business leaders have big teams, greater expectations and lots of pressure—meaning they may not feel like they have enough time to become fluent in AI. “We’re expecting flawless execution and endless resilience” from leaders, she says, but HR has to make sure they have the time and space and are supported by the right learning culture to make it happen.
Confront AI fear with a strong foundation
Darrell Ford, executive vice president and CHRO of UPS and one of this year’s Fellows of the National Academy of Human Resources, shares many of Buckingham’s concerns about HR’s unfolding work to navigate AI. In particular, says Ford, HR Executive’s 2024 HR Honor Roll inductee, the pace of change is going to be a challenge.
HR needs to move with measured steps in such a context, especially to ensure their AI strategy isn’t “tech-dominant.”
“Tech is part of the solution,” he says, “but this is more about [figuring out] how work gets done—the people processes, design thinking, values-driven engineering. That’s most important, and then tech can be part of the solution.”
To redesign work, Ford says HR needs to lead with the business problem first—steeped in values and people-centricity—which will help bring them to the “tech answer” much more naturally.
While HR has to keep this forward focus, it’s critical that leaders remain realistic about the challenges AI could bring to their workforces today. AI is going to create job losses. The tools are taking on tasks more easily, quickly and at a lower price tag, so, “certain roles or work will be displaced. That is coming,” he says.
That displacement will likely hit hardest those workers who are “stitching together jobs and roles to make a living,” he says. And it comes at a time when the proper social safety nets to support them are at risk.
“Let’s be direct about it: The price of healthcare is going up or [coverage] is going away,” Ford says. “It’s those folks who work hard, who bust their tails, who may be on the fringe, who will be most impacted. And our social safety networks may not be there like they used to be. I worry about that.”
‘Excited’ for the challenge
Despite the uncertainty AI is stirring for HR and across organizations, it’s also creating significant opportunities for the function, making 2026 a daunting, yet exciting time for HR, Buckingham and Ford agree.
“We’re partners in every dynamic change,” Buckingham says. “That makes me really excited; I love seeing a lot of my peers taking on AI transformation.”
HR is the natural choice to lead the change that this transformation will require, Ford adds.
“We’re at a point where technology is part of the answer, but humans have to be at the center of everything we do,” he says. “HR is uniquely positioned to be at the center to help guide and navigate the course going forward, whether that be organizational culture, skills, or process capability. These are all HR domains that we have license to lead.”
Now, he says, the question is: Are we ready for the moment?
“I’m excited,” he says, “because I believe that we are.”
