Human and AI qualities define great co-workers in AI workplaces
What Makes a Great Co-Worker in an AI-Native Workplace?
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
As people work more closely with AI in their jobs, this study explores what makes a great co-worker when both humans and AI are involved. The authors interviewed workers and surveyed over 1,500 employees at a large tech company to identify important qualities shared by humans and AI, such as kindness and ability. They found different opinions about how AI should behave, like whether it should show warmth or take initiative. They also created guidelines for how humans and AI should work together respectfully and responsibly.
What this means in practice
- •For human resources teams: Design co-worker evaluation criteria that fairly assess AI as well as human team members based on shared qualities.
- •For ai product designers: Develop AI tools that fit workplace expectations by balancing initiative, warmth, and responsibility according to worker preferences.$Commercial implications: Enables building AI assistants that adapt to human expectations and integrate smoothly into team workflows, improving user acceptance.
Authors
Rudrajit Choudhuri, Max Meijer, Sam Yu-Te Lee, Cinoo Lee, Caolan Mannion, Peter Jahn, Anita Sarma, Christian Bird, Alice Ferng
Abstract
As knowledge work grows interdependent between humans and AI, we ask what makes a great co-worker in an AI-native workplace. To answer this, we conducted 22 interviews and a large-scale mixed-methods survey of 1,534 knowledge workers at a multinational technology company. We contribute BACI, a framework of 75 co-worker qualities that apply to humans and AI, spanning Benevolence, Ability, Cooperativeness, and Integrity. Comparing priorities for humans and AI identified 11 co-worker archetypes and revealed disagreement over whether AI should have warmth, take initiative, or own outcomes. We also show how priorities for these archetypes varied with workers' individual characteristics. Lastly, we contribute a taxonomy of AI work etiquette capturing the obligations co-workers expect of one another when preparing, sharing, and taking responsibility for AI-supported work. Based on these findings, we derive implications to inform worker-centric AI and workplace design.