HR Leaders Must Champion the AI Revolution
HR + AI = The Future. Transform teams, break silos, and drive success. Will you lead or be left behind?

The groundbreaking Procter & Gamble "Cybernetic Teammate" study reveals that AI isn't just another productivity tool—it fundamentally transforms how teams work and how organizations should be structured. I'll explore how this study changes our understanding of AI's business impact and why HR leaders must position themselves as strategic drivers of AI adoption in their organizations. In this article, you will discover why organizations that empower HR to lead the AI revolution will gain significant competitive advantages and how you will be a key leader in the transformation.
AI in HR Today
with Anthony Onesto
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Revolutionary Business Impacts That Demand Attention
The comprehensive P&G study of 776 professionals reveals three transformative business impacts of AI that executives need to understand:
- Dramatic productivity transformation - the study showed individuals using AI performed just as well as two-person teams without AI, demonstrating an improvement over baseline performance. This isn't just incremental efficiency—it's a fundamental restructuring of what's possible with your existing workforce. AI-enabled groups also worked 12-16% faster, producing more detailed solutions.
- Disappearing of expertise boundaries - the most disruptive finding showed AI eliminated professional silos between technical and commercial specialists. When using AI, both groups produced equally balanced solutions that integrated multiple perspectives, effectively democratizing expertise across traditional boundaries. Even more interesting, less experienced employees using AI performed comparably to teams with professional members, fundamentally changing the experience/performance equation.
- Enhanced employee experiences - contrary to fears about technology creating stress, AI users reported significantly higher positive and lower negative emotions. This emotional advantage directly translates to engagement, retention, and performance—a business impact that isn't overlooked in today's talent market.
So Why HR? The Business Case for HR Leadership in AI
These findings position HR as the natural driver for AI transformation, with compelling business reasons:
- Strategic Organizational Advantage - according to Qualtrics research, organizations with mature people analytics capabilities achieve 82% higher three-year average profits than peers. When HR leaders understand how AI transforms team structures and expertise flows, they can redesign organizations to capitalize on these newly discovered collaboration patterns better than anyone else.
- Competitive Talent Edge - the finding that AI improves employee experience offers a critical competitive advantage in talent markets. My article "Digital Breadcrumbs" documented that organizations using AI-powered performance management systems report 22% higher employee retention. This represents significant cost savings and performance continuity in markets where talent is scarce.
- Breaking Down Business Silos - the P&G study demonstrates that AI eliminates traditional boundaries between technical and commercial expertise—a challenge that has plagued organizations for decades. HR leaders who harness this capability can design more fluid, collaborative organizations where knowledge flows freely across departmental boundaries, accelerating innovation and market responsiveness.
How HR Can Lead the AI Business Revolution
For HR to drive this transformation and deliver business impact, they must:
- Reframe AI from Cost Center to Profit Driver - HR leaders must shift the executive perception of AI from merely a cost-saving automation tool to a strategic capability that enhances and accelerates human performance. The P&G study provides concrete evidence for this narrative shift—AI doesn't just make current work more efficient; it fundamentally changes what kind of work is possible and how organizations should be structured.
- Drive Cross-Functional AI Literacy - with AI eliminating traditional expertise boundaries, HR should establish company-wide AI literacy programs that recognize AI's role in making experts better at their jobs and helping everyone develop expertise beyond their traditional domains. Also, having employees share examples of AI use professionally and personally will provide a cultural signal that it's okay to use AI. This democratization of knowledge represents a significant competitive advantage for organizations that embrace it early. There is a caution here from an HR leader in a recent webinar - when folks become “micro-experts” on a topic outside their domain, they tend to provide a novice opinion in scenarios where you already have experts. This could cause friction across teams.
- Lead Organizational Redesign for the AI Era - the most visionary HR leaders will use these insights to reimagine organizational structures entirely. If individuals with AI can perform at the level of teams without it, and if expertise boundaries become more fluid, traditional organizational charts may become obsolete. HR can pioneer new models of team composition, reporting structures, and collaboration that maximize the human-AI partnership. We are experts in organizational design; this is just a new way of thinking.
Between now and the next three months, CEOs will start to look into their organizations to find the leader to help them drive this change. The CTO will be charged with buying human augmentation, the CFO will buy human replacement, and the CHRO will be in between, making the arbitrage. Some HR leaders embrace this new technology, and some haven’t tried using it. Where do you stand on your AI maturity?
The choice for HR leaders is clear: lead the AI revolution or be left behind. The organizations where HR steps up to champion AI as a strategic business advantage, not just a tool, will gain more substantial business outcomes and help drive equity growth. Those same organizations’ HR leaders will be positioned as critical business leaders. Will you be one of those HR leaders?
AI in HR Today
with Anthony Onesto
Subscribe for exclusive insights from Anthony Onesto, Chief People Officer at Suzy, and learn how AI is reshaping HR, enhancing employee engagement, and driving business success.