The New Social Image: How AI Competency and AI Proactivity Influence Self- and Peer-Perceptions in the Workplace

Human-AI collaboration is considered the most promising way to incorporate AI in the workplace. What remains unexplored are the experiential consequences of this teaming. More specifically, in a team with AI, how humans perceive themselves (self-perception) and how they are perceived by their coworkers (peer perception) in terms of work ownership and job meaningfulness. In a 2x2x2 vignette study (n=50), participants rated perceptions of ownership, affect, job meaningfulness and satisfaction, and role dynamics across two levels (low/high) of AI proactivity and AI competency as within-subject factors, with point-of-view (self perception/peer perception) as between-subjects. Our results showed that AI with low competency or low proactivity generally improved feelings related to ownership, meaningfulness, satisfaction, and role dynamics, and also increased positive affect while reducing negative affect. However, these effects were often influenced by point-of-view. For instance, low AI proactivity resulted in higher job satisfaction from self-perception rather than peer perception. Based on our findings, we argue that designing AI for the future of work solely around performance metrics may not be adequate. Highly competent and proactive AI-driven systems can have undesirable impacts on perceptions of ownership, job identity, social image and team dynamics, and consequently, job meaningfulness.

AI in the Workplace: The Impact of AI on Perceived Job Decency and Meaningfulness

The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in workplaces is transforming how we work. While existing research on human-AI collaboration at work often prioritizes performance, less is known about their experiential outcomes. Through interviews with 24 employees across Information Technology (IT), service-based, and healthcare sectors, this paper examines AI's impact on job satisfaction via perceptions of job decency and meaningfulness, now and in the future. Our results reveal that the anticipated impact of AI on overall job satisfaction varies with the occupational domain, with differing perceptions of its underlying decency and meaningfulness. For instance, IT and healthcare anticipate increased satisfaction with decency aspects like working hours but decreased satisfaction with meaningfulness aspects like social image due to misconceptions about AI handling most of their tasks. Conversely, service workers foresee no improvement in their working hours but a higher social standing due to the perceived status boost associated with working with AI.