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Nyberg, A. J., Schleicher, D., Yakubovich , V., & Minbaeva, D. (2025). A Brave New World of Human Resources
Research: Navigating Perils and Identifying Grand Challenges of the GenAI Revolution. JOURNAL OF
MANAGEMENT, 51(6), 2677-2718. [Link]

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JOMXXX10.1177/01492063251325188Journal of Management / Month XXXXNyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research

Journal of Management
Vol. 51 No. 6, July 2025 2677­–2718
DOI: 10.1177/01492063251325188
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A Brave New World of Human Resources

Research: Navigating Perils and Identifying
Grand Challenges of the GenAI Revolution
Anthony J. Nyberg
University of South Carolina
Deidra J. Schleicher
Iowa State University
Bradford S. Bell
Cornell University
Corine Boon
University of Amsterdam
Peter Cappelli
University of Pennsylvania
David G. Collings
Trinity College Dublin
Joseph E. Dalle Molle
University of South Carolina
Stefan Feuerriegel
LMU Munich
Barry Gerhart
University of Wisconsin-Madison

*After the first two authors, order of authorship is alphabetical.

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank the CHROs and their technical advisors who donated their valuable
time to attend the Summit and educate us on these critically important issues in practice.

Corresponding authors: Anthony J. Nyberg, J. Henry Fellers Professor, Darla Moore School of Business,
University of South Carolina, 1014 Greene Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.

E-mail: [Link]@[Link]

Deidra J. Schleicher, John and Deborah Ganoe Professor of Management, Ivy College of Business, Iowa State
University, 2167 Union Dr, Ames, IA 50011-2042, USA.

E-mail: deidra@[Link]

2677
2678   Journal of Management / July 2025

Yoojin Jeong
M. Audrey Korsgaard
University of South Carolina
Dana Minbaeva
King’s College of London
Robert E. Ployhart
University of South Carolina
Prasanna Tambe
University of Pennsylvania
Ingo Weller
LMU Munich
Patrick M. Wright
University of South Carolina
Valery Yakubovich
University of Pennsylvania

This paper reviews the transformative role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in
Human Resource (HR) management, from a practice perspective, highlighting both oppor-
tunities and challenges and laying out a use-inspired future research agenda. This scoping
review is grounded in insights from a unique Summit held in Spring 2024, which brought
together HR academic scholars with dozens of Fortune 500 Chief Human Resource Officers
(CHROs) and their top technical leaders to discuss the workforce implications of GenAI. The
paper identifies six key themes from the Summit practitioners: GenAI as disruptive and
transformative, data as competitive advantage, adoption challenges, potential ethical
abuses, the experimentation imperative, and the critical role of CHROs. These six themes
provide a foundation for future research directions, which are discussed regarding six func-
tional HR areas: recruitment and selection, training and development, performance manage-
ment, job and work design, talent management, and compensation and benefits. The research
agenda in each area emphasizes the need for academic researchers to understand and
address the practical challenges posed by GenAI. Overcoming these substantive challenges
will demand meaningful effort and a keen willingness to learn, on the part of both HR lead-
ers and scholars. The paper concludes with a call to action for management scholars to
engage in use-inspired research that bridges the gap between academic knowledge and
practical HR challenges.

Keywords: AI; genAI; human resources; recruitment; selection; training and development;
performance management; job and work design; talent management; compensa-
tion and benefits; ethics; CHROs; HR analytics; decision rights; use-inspired
research
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2679

Exploring the role of artificial intelligence (AI; the broad field of computer science
focused on creating machines capable of learning patterns and making predictions) in Human
Resource (HR) management research reveals both opportunities and challenges. Recent
overviews of AI (e.g., Budhwar et al., 2023) highlight its potential to transform HR functions
from recruitment and selection to compensation and benefits. This potential to revolutionize
workplace dynamics and promote new HR practices also raises challenges for researchers
and practitioners (Tambe, Cappelli, & Yakubovich, 2019), including concerns about biases,
ethics, the nature of work, and the evolving role of humans in organizations (Cappelli &
Rogovsky, 2023; Chowdhury et al., 2023). We argue that to contribute to the resolution of
these challenges, academic researchers must first understand key elements of this revolution
in practice.
AI, often equated with machine learning (ML), refers to algorithms that learn to perform
a task from data (Bishop, 2006), and it offers new opportunities to support the decision-
making of managers based on causal reasoning. For example, AI can predict which employ-
ees are at risk of leaving, enabling HR to develop targeted retention strategies, or future skill
needs, and helping organizations to strategically invest in hiring and developing employees.
AI systems can sift through vast amounts of resumes to identify candidates with a strong fit,
reducing the time and effort required to hire. AI systems can also handle administrative HR
tasks (e.g., chatbots can explain compensation, offer career advice, or provide learning
opportunities; Nyberg, Cragun, Conroy, & Weller, 2023), freeing up productive time for
decision-makers. Different AI algorithms have different strengths and limitations and use
cases; for the interested reader, Table 1 provides an overview of the various types of AI algo-
rithms and how they can be applied to HRM. The focus in this paper is Generative AI (GenAI)
specifically.
GenAI is a subset of AI that specializes in generating new content based on vast amounts
of data. GenAI has been popularized due to breakthroughs in the ease and accessibility of
large language models (LLM). The burgeoning interest and exploding popularity have posi-
tioned GenAI as a focal point in 2024 for boards of directors (Edelman & Sharma, 2023) and
CHROs. This surge in attention reflects not only the anticipated potential upside but also the
anticipated disruptive impact of GenAI on HR.
In response, in the Spring of 2024, we hosted a unique Summit that brought together lead-
ing HR scholars with dozens of Fortune 500 Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) and
the CHROs’ top technology leaders. The focus of the Summit was the workforce implica-
tions of GenAI, and the Summit’s purpose was twofold: to enhance strategic thinking among
HR business leaders about GenAI, and to deepen HR scholars’ understanding of AI’s com-
plexities in practice as a foundation for future research—with the latter culminating in this
review paper. We position this paper as a “scoping review” (Munn, Peters, Stern, Tufanaru,
McArthur, & Aromataris, 2018), one which is based on the experience and expertise of prac-
titioners and seasoned HR scholars. Scoping reviews are a form of knowledge synthesis with
the aim of informing practice and policy and providing direction for future research priorities
(Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Sucharew & Macaluso, 2019). The primary characteristics of
scoping reviews are that they are (a) broad in scope but less detailed (theoretically or empiri-
cally) than a systematic review; (b) useful for exploring emerging areas of research; (c) often
precede systematic reviews to define research questions; and (d) have an ideal use case of
initial exploration of new or under-researched fields (as is the case here).1 Although not fre-
quently seen in our field, practice-informed insights are a natural fit for a scoping review,
2680   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 1
Categories of AI Algorithms and Their Applications

Definition/Types Application Examples in HRM

Machine Supervised ML (e.g., linear regression, Supervised ML:

Learning (ML) decision trees, neural networks) uses labeled • Hiring management: Candidate
data for prediction tasks (prediction is not success based on career data
explanation). Outcome-focused. • Performance management: Future
Unsupervised ML (e.g., factor analysis, cluster performance trajectory based on past
analysis) uses unlabeled data to identify reviews
patterns or understand structures, but • Turnover: Flight risk
often without a priori domain knowledge. Unsupervised ML:
Exploratory. • Diversity: Detecting faultlines
• Training and development:
Grouping employees based on
feedback or engagement levels
Natural Language A specific branch of AI algorithms that NLP is used for text processing (e.g.,
Processing focuses on analyzing text data (e.g., resumes, resumes, performance reviews).
(NLP) employee reviews). Often seen as a separate NLP is often used to map text onto a
category due to the complex nature of text: different representation that can then
text is unstructured, making it difficult to be inserted into an ML algorithm (e.g.,
find a mathematical representation in vector to predict job performance based on
format to convert text to structured data. the content of a reference letter).
NLP covers a broad set of methods, including As a simple rule of thumb, NLP will
large language models (LLMs) and simple often be a “tool” for preprocessing
word count statistics (e.g., a count of the text to be used in downstream
number of positive adjectives in reviews). algorithms.
Generative AI Generative AI refers to a subset of AI LLMs hold considerable potential
technologies that are capable of generating for revolutionizing HR. Use-cases
new content, such as text, which resembles include:
human-created content (Feuerriegel, • Understanding themes and
Hartmann, Janiesch, & Zschech, 2024; sentiments in employee feedback
Grimes, Von Krogh, Feuerriegel, Rink, & to enable HR to quickly address
Gruber, 2023). concerns and capitalize on
A specific example are large language models, sentiments.
a type of generative AI model focused on • Generating engaging job
generating human language. LLMs are descriptions, interview questions
trained on extensive text data, enabling them tailored to a candidate’s profile, or
to perform diverse tasks such as writing, personalized onboarding guidelines
translating, summarizing, and answering for new hires.
questions with a high degree of fluency and • Chatbots using generative AI can
coherence. LLMs are the backbone behind help in explaining compensation,
ChatGPT. providing career assistance, or
LLMs can solve simple and/or generic delivering learning opportunities,
tasks without customization (“off-the- among others. Could deliver all
shelf,” or “zero-shot” models); custom HR-related information through a
models use pretrained LLMs and are single unified, high-quality platform,
subsequently finetuned with internal data for enhancing accessibility and user
customization. experience.

especially one aimed at identifying research questions of interest when current practice and
research are nascent and fragmented (Munn et al., 2018). Following best practices for reviews
in management (Simsek, Fox, Heavey, & Liu, 2025), we begin by establishing the purpose
and nature of our work.
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2681

Both the Summit and this review paper were guided by the twin beliefs that (a) scholars
have a unique opportunity and responsibility to guide GenAI’s application to HR and (b) it is
valuable to first understand GenAI-related concerns of HR business leaders and their techni-
cal leaders for research to be both relevant and influential. That is, there have been other
reviews in this area (i.e., Budhwar et al., 2023; Chowdhury et al., 2023), but they have been
more “traditional” academic reviews that start from the perspective that the academic litera-
ture is the best source of requisite knowledge on the phenomenon itself (despite its emergent
nature) and they then use this scholarly knowledge to either create conceptual models to
guide future work (e.g., Chowdhury et al., 2023) and/or to “inform HR professionals [how
to] understand and adapt to the changing AI landscape” (Budhwar et al., 2023: 608). Missing
from these treatments of GenAI in our literature is a true privileging of practice (especially
as informed by top business leaders) in the identification of research needs. In response, we
designed this unique collaborative Summit (bringing together academic researchers and
business leaders) not only to uncover practitioners’ views on the transformative potential and
challenges of GenAI but also to use this information as a key contextualizing foundation for
future research directions.
The resulting paper aims to (a) share with a wider audience (i.e., management scholars)
the insights from the Summit—namely, the themes identified by the CHROs and their techni-
cal leaders; (b) encourage academics to adopt a strong voice in this GenAI revolution, includ-
ing via an explicit focus on use-inspired research; and (c) outline specific research needs and
grand challenges in HR functional domains that are implicated by the themes from practice.
Related to this final point, during the second day of the Summit, HR scholars involved in this
collaboration met to discuss the practice themes heard in and identified from the previous
day’s session, and the implications of these themes for HR research in general and for spe-
cific domains within HR. In total, 17 renowned academic HR scholars, with deep yet varied
expertise across different HR areas and data analytics, were involved in that process and the
creation of this paper.
The paper is organized into two main parts. In the first, targeted toward management schol-
ars more generally, we summarize the key themes identified from the Summit, with the goal of
bringing the essence of the Summit to a much broader academic audience. Returning to the title
of this paper, these themes make clear why this is a revolution, what is going to be new and
different, and why this requires bravery. As such, they represent an important impetus and con-
textualization for future research in multiple areas of management. These themes also provide
critical contextualization for the implications of GenAI for future HR-related research in par-
ticular. In short, they encapsulate the opportunities, challenges, and potential pitfalls of apply-
ing GenAI in HR, setting the stage for an in-depth examination of implications and future
research needs in multiple HR domains, which is the second main section of our paper.
We use Posthuma, Campion, Masimova, and Campion’s (2013) taxonomy of HR prac-
tices (with some minor adaptations, as specified here) to organize our discussion of the
impact of GenAI on practice and future research needs within the following six key areas of
HR: (1) recruitment and selection; (2) training and development; (3) performance manage-
ment; (4) job and work design; (5) talent management (our broader label for the “promo-
tions” function from the Posthuma et al. model); and (6) compensation and benefits.
(Although part of the Posthuma et al. model, we excluded employee relations and communi-
cations as separate sections, because these were themes that cut across HR functional areas;
as such, these issues are covered in multiple places in the paper.) These sections, informed by
2682   Journal of Management / July 2025

the Summit’s discussions, outline areas where GenAI’s integration into people management
presents substantive research opportunities and needs, providing readers with insights on
both what future AI-related research questions are essential as well as how future research
should proceed. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the broader scholarly needs in this
area, including an explicit mobilizing call to action for management researchers.

Themes From the Summit

Reflecting the Summit’s goal to blend HR and technological expertise to guide research,
37 CHROs, primarily from Fortune 500 firms, were joined by their top technology advisors
and strategists, facilitating a day-long comprehensive dialogue on GenAI in HR through four
panels and a keynote. Panels began with insights from senior business leaders discussing
GenAI-related challenges and opportunities in their respective fields, and each was followed
by small roundtable discussions (with a mix of academic researchers and HR leaders at each
table) and then a full debrief with all participants. This structured approach enabled a rich
exchange of ideas among both diverse HR academics and HR business and technical leaders,
aligned with the goal of bridging the gap between academic research and practical HR chal-
lenges in the realm of GenAI. Participants agreed to abide by “Chatham House Rules,”
meaning that specific examples and learnings could be discussed and disseminated outside
the Summit but that no practitioner or organization would be cited as connected to these
specifics, thus allowing presenters and other participants to freely share. For this reason, we
do not attribute any quotations throughout the paper to any specific practitioners or organiza-
tions represented at the Summit (Dave Ulrich, the keynote speaker for the Summit, is an
exception in terms of attributing quotations).
In the identification of the key GenAI-related challenges for future HR research, we
privilege the themes emerging inductively from the HR business leaders’ and technical strat-
egists’ contributions at the Summit. Thus, the first need was to identify these themes from
the transcripts of the Summit sessions. We used GenAI tools to create the initial list of
themes, which was then vetted by the academic researchers the following day; the vetting
process largely involved condensing several more specific themes into six broader themes.
These six themes are introduced and discussed in turn in each of the following sections
(Table 2 maps the relevance of these themes across the HR functional areas, with implica-
tions to be discussed in later sections).

Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive and Transformative

The first, and arguably most important, theme emerging from the Summit is that GenAI will
disrupt the nature of work. CHROs resoundingly confirmed that “second generation” GenAI
(e.g., ChatGPT) “changed everything,” with the capability to radically transform both the con-
tent and process of work. Summit participants emphasized that the revolutionary use of GenAI
is not a technology decision; instead, it is about process transformation and work transforma-
tion. (“Let’s not forget our most important task as HR business leaders is to answer the question
of ‘What is the work that drives competitive advantage in the organization?’ AI is a tool for
helping us with that.”) Overall, Summit participants predicted GenAI will fundamentally
change all jobs, noting that the change is going to be constant and that the rapid and continuous
reskilling required in the face of GenAI will be daunting for organizations and employees.
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2683

Table 2
Integration of Summit Themes with HR Areas and Example Research Questions

Most Relevant GenAI Themes From

HR Area the Summit Example Research Questions

Recruitment Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive How can we make GenAI-based TA systems
and Selection and Transformative; Theme #4: sufficiently transparent? What are the optimal
(i.e. Talent Potential Abuses and Ethical configurations of human-GenAI interaction in
Acquisition Considerations with GenAI; Theme TA? How can AI generate competitive advantage
[TA]) #6: The (Strategic) Role of the through identification of critical roles and KSAOs
CHRO in the GenAI Revolution and aid in the creation and deployment of limited
human capital resources?
Training and Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive What are the skills and learning styles needed to
Development and Transformative; Theme #3: work/experiment with, and embrace, GenAI, and
Adoption Challenges with GenAI; which of these are best developed versus selected
Theme #5: The Experimentation for? To what extent will delegating transactional
Imperative with GenAI; Theme tasks to GenAI influence the development of
#6: The Role of the CHRO in the employees over time? How do secondary and post-
GenAI Revolution secondary institutions need to adjust to prepare the
workforce of the future? What strategies can ensure
continuous learning and upskilling of employees to
adapt to GenAI advancements?
Performance Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive What is the quality of the outputs/decisions that
Management and Transformative; Theme #3: emerge from GenAI-enabled PM with regard to, for
Adoption Challenges with GenAI; example, accuracy, validity, potential biases, and
Theme #4: Potential Abuses and ethicality, and how can organizations effectively
Ethical Considerations with GenAI balance tradeoffs across criteria? When and where
(“human in the loop”); Theme #5: should human judgment play a role in GenAI-
The Experimentation Imperative enabled PM tasks, and what does the quality of the
with GenAI (multidimensional decision look like under different models? How
evaluative criteria) does the use of GenAI fundamentally change the
role of the manager in PM?
Job and Work Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive What role can GenAI play in optimizing job
Design and Transformative; Theme #3: design and work (re)allocation, and where does
Adoption Challenges with GenAI; this create competitive advantage? How do we
Theme #6: The Role of the CHRO mitigate employee resistance to AI-driven work
in the GenAI Revolution restructuring? Related, does everyone want to
“practice at the top of their license”? How do we
manage the large-scale redesign of jobs and tasks?
How does GenAI change which jobs are of most
strategic value?
Talent Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive and How can GenAI leverage data to identify (changing)
Management Transformative; Theme #2: Data as indicators of potential? What is the ceiling on the
Competitive Advantage; Theme #3: performance improvements of GenAI? How do
Adoption Challenges with GenAI; individuals interact with and respond to GenAI-
Theme #5: The Experimentation based job matching tools?
Imperative with GenAI
Compensation and Theme #1: GenAI as Disruptive and What steps should be taken to ensure transparency
Benefits Transformative; Theme #2: Data and fairness in GenAI-driven compensation
as Competitive Advantage; Theme decisions? How can organizations leverage GenAI
#4: Potential Abuses and Ethical for benefits customization without compromising
Considerations; Theme #6: The employee privacy? How will GenAI affect
Role of the CHRO in the GenAI employee sorting? Can research take advantage of
Revolution more accurate market data?
2684   Journal of Management / July 2025

CHROs at the Summit felt that GenAI will actually be more disruptive to white-collar
than blue-collar workers, characterizing it as the first big disruption to the world of white-
collar work (other than perhaps the work from home/hybrid transformation in the wake of the
pandemic; Barrero, Bloom, & Davis, 2023). In this context, GenAI could create value for
organizations by replacing knowledge workers (as was an underlying fear of Hollywood
writers in the recent strikes), making workers more effective, and/or by creating new jobs
where workers can create more value. But CHROs also argued that the media has been a bit
misleading about the likely impact of GenAI on the workforce, exaggerating both how many
jobs will be lost and how many new jobs (e.g., prompt engineer) will be created. In a Fortune
500 survey (Murray, 2023), 74% of CEOs expected AI to reduce headcount in the next 5
years, compared to 15% expecting headcount increases. However, the CHROs felt that what
had been obscured by such headlines is the fact that the greatest impact of GenAI may be in
how it radically transforms the work performed by most employees. This idea is supported
by the OECD survey on AI effects ([Link]
jobs, Lane, Williams, & Broecke, 2023), which showed, in contrast to the Fortune 500 CEO
survey, that only 15% of employers anticipated “attrition or redundancies”; instead, their
strongest expectations were around retraining or upskilling current workers (67%) and hiring
new workers (41%). That same OECD survey found that although 60% of employees were
worried about job loss due to AI in the next 10 years, a majority reported improved job per-
formance, enjoyment of their job, and mental health as a result of AI (79%, 63%, and 54%,
respectively). Important factors in these positive reactions are likely that respondents were
twice as likely to say that AI had automated repetitive and dangerous tasks as had created
them, and 63% agreed that AI assisted their decision-making.

Theme #2: Data as Competitive Advantage

A second theme emerging from the Summit was that GenAI’s potential is not just as a tool
or technology, but also as data. As the keynote speaker, Dave Ulrich, reminded us, “any
problem we have (including any HR problem) can be better solved by having better informa-
tion. So, this is the source of advantage to AI.” Summit participants strongly endorsed the
idea that, in this revolution, organizations will compete on the quality and quantity of data.
Many organizations have found data curation overwhelming. HR has been awash in data
for more than a decade—applicant attributes, employee performance, absenteeism outcomes,
and so forth—with no ability to analyze it because the database management and processing
tasks are so daunting. CHROs have struggled with building a modern data infrastructure and
consolidating their data across functions since the dawn of data science 15 years ago. GenAI
certainly can enable easier analysis of that data, and unstructured data that was ignored before
can now be turned into useful knowledge. Assembling that data to create value is, however,
still a formidable task, and one that will likely only become more important as the GenAI
revolution continues.

Theme #3: Adoption Challenges With GenAI

The third theme involved a challenge to the potential transformative benefits of GenAI:
people must want to use it. That is, to realize the potential gains, employees and managers
will have to want to use GenAI, but there are many human nature-based hurdles to adoption.
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2685

For example, in one panel, a disagreement arose between a CHRO and their IT expert regard-
ing how soon employees would be ready to adopt the organization’s most innovative GenAI
tools: the latter viewed this as their most exciting and transformative tool, yet the former was
skeptical about how ready employees were for it.2 The resulting discussion made it clear that
although the potential to do something with GenAI may exist, not everything will be imple-
mented quickly, due to employee resistance. Other CHROs strongly reinforced the impor-
tance of the question of how we can, en masse, get employees to be more receptive to GenAI.
One part of employee resistance is related to a general fear of change and one part is spe-
cific to GenAI, based in (a) perceptions that human recommendations are more fair, accurate,
and authentic, even when human advice is demonstrably worse (Jago, 2019); and (b) a lack
of information about previous AI usage by others (Alexander, Blinder, & Zak, 2018). But
another large part of this resistance is tied to trust in management. One CHRO shared research
that shows that although a large majority of employees think GenAI tools are good and will
have positive effects, a markedly smaller group of those same employees trust their organi-
zational leaders not to abuse these tools (an issue also tied to Theme #4). These discussions
led to a prediction from Summit participants that there will be more labor-management ten-
sion as a result of GenAI than we have seen in a long time, and also that there may be more
white-collar unionization compared to any time in the history of work. These barriers to
adoption, resistance to change, and the resulting strife and conflict between employees and
management are questions that HR scholars and management researchers are uniquely posi-
tioned to address.

Theme #4: Potential Abuses and Ethical Considerations With GenAI

A fourth theme from the Summit concerns another key challenge, and that is the need to
be mindful of potential ethical abuses and dilemmas with GenAI. Science and technology
often move forward based on the desire to do something that has never been done before, but
there is a need to balance innovation with ethics. This was probably the largest and loudest
theme emerging from both the practice and academic camps at the Summit, and we therefore
provide a bit more elaborated treatment of it here, via an organizational justice lens (Colquitt,
Hill, & De Cremer, 2023), to organize the multiple points made in this area. For example,
distributive justice (i.e., the fairness of the outcome/decisions such as pay, promotion, etc.) is
at considerable risk when GenAI is used to make HR decisions, because the models can be
biased if the training data used to develop them reflect existing patterns of inequality
(Kellogg, Valentine, & Christin, 2020). GenAI is also prone to random error in the form of
hallucination, wherein generated content does not align with the source content (Ji, et al.,
2023), which can lead to arbitrary and inaccurate decisions.
AI’s record is mixed across various components of procedural justice. For example, given
that GenAI follows a set of rules, it provides consistent application of procedures. Although
it is free of personal bias, the potential for bias and inaccuracy still exists due to the quality
of training data. There is also the issue of privacy, particularly the risk of invasion of privacy,
which is considered a breach of ethics and procedural justice (Alge, 2001). There is height-
ened tension between employees’ expectations for privacy and employers’ right to monitor
employees. GenAI tends to be more invasive as it enables access to vast amounts of employee
data, including minute-level monitoring of work behavior and data not directly relevant to
work, such as personal habits (Kellogg et al., 2020). The capability to gather extensive
2686   Journal of Management / July 2025

behavioral data may exceed the intended purpose of monitoring, resulting in unmeaningful
and invasive metrics (Schafheitle, Weibel, Ebert, Kasper, Schank, & Leicht-Deobald, 2020).
As one Summit executive stated about gathering such data, “just because you can, doesn’t
mean you should.” Moreover, data initially collected for one purpose may subsequently
become accessible to other parties and used for other purposes. Concerns about data access
and use extend beyond organizational boundaries, as GenAI training often involves acquir-
ing data without the informed consent of the sources of that data (Charlwood & Guenole,
2022), such as with vendors who have access to client data.
Informational justice (i.e., decisions are adequately and transparently explained) is often
compromised in GenAI given the opacity of its interpretations and predictions (Bankins &
Formosa, 2023). Moreover, employees are often unaware of the data collected and the pur-
pose of such data collection (Hunkenschroer & Luetge, 2022). Indeed, some suggested that
organizations may intentionally withhold such information to avoid employees gaming the
system to manufacture positive results.
Of the four justice components, it appears that interactional justice is most consistently
negatively impacted by GenAI (Narayanan, Nagpal, McGuire, Schweitzer, & De Cremer,
2024). Interactional justice (the extent to which employees feel they were treated with dig-
nity and respect) is a distinctly human aspect of organizational justice (Tyler & Bies, 2015);
as such, it is arguably the most difficult aspect of justice to imbue in GenAI systems. Indeed,
the very act of employing GenAI for HR-related tasks may signal that the organization does
not care about its employees (Narayanan et al., 2024). At the same time, returning to the
OECD survey, almost five times as many employees (43%) reported that AI improved man-
agement fairness as those (9%) saying AI worsened it.
Summit participants emphasized that the potential for ethical and justice violations sug-
gests the need for equal focus on questions of what ought to be done, not just what can be
done with GenAI. Managers will undoubtedly play a large role in either mitigating or exac-
erbating these ethical risks. The executives we heard from advocated for two key governance
mechanisms in this regard: a set of guiding principles and a governing body that reviews and
approves use cases (we discuss the latter in the next section below). Several HR business
leaders noted that an organization (especially the CHRO’s team) must first set its strategies,
principles, and policies around GenAI. One firm shared that they have a simple two-part
strategy in this regard: AI is used (a) to improve productivity (tied to their strategy to leap
ahead vis-à-vis their competitors) and (b) to increase employee satisfaction.
Important considerations in guiding principles are whether and how managers are in the
loop, the degree of informed consent and control over data, and data use (Spisak, Rosenberg,
& Beilby, 2023). For example, another firm shared their seven basic principles of AI
(founded on their staunch belief that it is important to have guardrails for how AI is used):
(a) Respect human rights; (b) Enable human oversight; (c) Ensure transparency and
explainability; (d) Ensure security and reliability; (e) Protect privacy (noting that, because
privacy means something different to different people, this principle is a big challenge); (f)
Promote equity and inclusion (i.e., AI for all); and (g) Protect the environment (noting that
large language models are massive users of energy). Regarding the “human oversight,”
many of the Summit organizations have adopted the practice of having “a human in the
middle” (e.g., having a human, rather than GenAI, make the decisions) or “a human in the
loop” (having human oversight/review of everything that comes from GenAI; Monarch &
Munro, 2021). The extent to which human judgment is incorporated into the decision
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2687

process in GenAI is important for the correctability principle, a positive component of

procedural justice. Of course, it is unknown how representative the Summit companies are
on these issues; there was a clear sense from the participants that organizational abuses will
occur with GenAI. Finally, participants noted that the principles and policies set around
GenAI must also be grounded in what regulatory compliance will look like in this area
(with regard to, for example, transparency and data privacy).
To date, much of the extant research on fairness in GenAI has been rooted in computer
science (Narayanan et al., 2024), generally focused on comparing human versus AI decision-
making, or how to embed fairness principles into AI design. The focus of research on GenAI
ethics must expand from its emphasis on design features to the experience of the employee
(Colquitt et al., 2023). To that end, it is imperative to examine the role of organizational gov-
ernance and managerial compliance in the effective and responsible use of GenAI in HR, a
focus to which management scholars seem ideally suited. We will return to this theme in
some of the specific HR sections below, and we summarize the ethics-related research ques-
tions that cut across HR areas in the final section of the paper.

Theme #5: The Experimentation Imperative With GenAI

A fifth theme emerging from the leaders at the Summit, and one with great relevance
for specific areas of HR, was the importance of experimentation. That is, after setting the
above-referenced strategies, principles, and policies for GenAI, there is an imperative for
HR leaders to engage quickly and continuously in experimentation. CHROs at the very
forefront of GenAI application emphasized treating all initiatives as experimental. This
echoes the core principles of evidence-based management (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006), but
at an unprecedented scale and depth. A notable assertion from a CHRO at the Summit,
“80% planned plus feedback is better than 100% planned,” underscored the value of quick
deployment and iterative learning and adaptation with GenAI. This perspective also influ-
enced views on regulation issues, with a consensus that policy and laws should target
GenAI use cases rather than the technology itself, facilitating nimble experimentation
while addressing ethical concerns.
In the context of rapid and continuous experimentation, Summit executives also empha-
sized the importance of a governing body to review proposed GenAI uses, to ensure align-
ment with the company’s guiding principles, to evaluate the strategic benefits, and to ask
rigorous questions about potential risks and unintended consequences. They recommended
that use case proposals should be clear on the strategic intent (e.g., cost savings or value
creation), with benefits weighed against both direct financial costs and potential costs associ-
ated with ethical risks. Accordingly, a breadth of perspectives should be represented in these
bodies—at a minimum, representing technological, strategic, human, ethical, and legal areas
of expertise—and in several of the Summit organizations these bodies reported directly to the
CEO. While having the best interests of the company as their top priority, these governing
bodies should represent the interests of customers, employees, and the larger society by
requiring answers about how the technology could negatively impact stakeholder groups.
They also need to serve a continuing review function, evaluating the validity of evolving
GenAI models on an ongoing basis, as well as the currency of static models, and ensuring
that cases are evaluated for their intended purpose, as GenAI applications are susceptible to
function creep (Schafheitle et al., 2020).
2688   Journal of Management / July 2025

The complexity of the charge for these GenAI governing bodies highlights an important
subtheme: the necessity of thinking about the outcomes of GenAI in a multidimensional (and
multi-level) way. That is, evaluating the effectiveness of GenAI applications (or any aspect of
GenAI policies), whether during rapid experimentation or the longer-term, encompasses mul-
tiple types and levels of criteria such as stakeholder satisfaction, cost, efficiency, productivity,
outcome quality (e.g., validity, accuracy, acceptability of decisions, freedom from bias), trust,
ethical considerations, organizational effectiveness, and societal impact, among others. As one
example, although having a GenAI governing board should foster perceptions of justice and
trust, such a board might also hinder rapid innovation and timely value creation. Thus, both
organizations and researchers must be explicit about the evaluative criteria of greatest interest,
and the tradeoffs among them, including at different levels (e.g., the effect on employee per-
formance or satisfaction vs. the effect on organizational effectiveness). With regard to deci-
sion/outcome quality specifically as an evaluative criterion, an interesting question was raised
at the Summit about the relevant standard when evaluating GenAI. That is, do we expect
GenAI-enabled recommendations and outcomes to be “perfect,” or merely as good as (or bet-
ter than) humans? Given that human judgment is itself rife with bias and error, it is not clear
whether, overall, GenAI will result in more or less flawed decision-making compared to
humans (Glikson & Woolley, 2020). These evaluative elements of experimentation should be
made explicit by organizations and must be studied by researchers.

Theme #6: The Role of the CHRO in the GenAI Revolution

Emerging from prior themes, and as suggested by the Summit’s focus on CHROs as key
informants, these top HR business leaders play a unique and critical role in the GenAI revolu-
tion. In discussing this final theme, we summarize the strategic, cultural, and moral respon-
sibilities of CHROs when it comes to GenAI, along with examples from the Summit.

Strategic role. Any digital disruption (like GenAI) requires reassessing business strategy,
and CHROs must help build the organizational capabilities necessary to enable that strategy
and create value in a way that benefits shareholders (Snell & Morris, 2014). They must focus
on developing the dynamic capabilities of sensing opportunities offered by GenAI, seizing
its value by designing innovative ways for value creation, and transforming by streamlining,
improving, and altering organizational routines. For example, as frequently shared at the
Summit, fulfilling the potential of GenAI will necessitate substantial upskilling and reskill-
ing for all employees, including HR professionals. Managers will likely also need upskilling
to take on greater leadership responsibility. The executives we heard from envision GenAI
as freeing managers from the routine to focus on the complex (including leading people).
However, lower- and middle-level managers may lack the skills and efficacy to assume
such responsibilities. These efforts must be a focus of CHROs. Tied to previous themes,
active experimentation will also be essential for uncovering how HR professionals and
GenAI tools need to interact for the emergence of dynamic organizational capabilities. This
includes experimenting with augmented integration (where humans collaborate closely with
machines to perform a task, Raisch & Krakowski, 2021) in areas with the greatest potential
to create value (e.g., talent management), while leaving automation (where machines do the
task themselves) to processes where efficiency and cost concerns are paramount (e.g., initial
screening of applicants).
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2689

Cultural role. CHROs also play a meaningful role in defining, building, and maintaining
organizational culture, and GenAI impacts culture in multiple ways. For example, it requires
employees to develop new skills, both in using GenAI and performing higher-value activi-
ties. As leaders at the Summit noted, cultures that emphasize continuous learning and self-
transformation have an advantage, as ongoing learning can simply be redirected. Conversely,
cultures that promote stability and consistency may resist learning new ways of working.
Similarly, when a culture of mistrust exists, there is likely to be substantial employee resis-
tance to GenAI (including undermining and sabotaging technology). Thus, culture can either
enable or hinder the realization of the full potential value of GenAI. CHROs must actively
build a culture that reinforces the use of GenAI and avoids “algorithmic aversion” (i.e.,
employees' and managers’ reluctance to use AI in their work; Dietvorst, Simmons, & Massey
2018). Explicit culture building can also help address another concern raised at the Summit,
regarding whether managers will actually use GenAI in the way intended and to its best
potential; executives at the Summit were not in agreement about a clear path to ensuring this,
other than it being a core CHRO responsibility.

Moral role. CHROs also have moral responsibilities in organizations, and GenAI imple-
mentation heightens the need for CHROs to act. As discussed, those involved with the tech
aspects of GenAI may myopically focus on what they are able to do and not pay sufficient
attention to the question of whether they should (i.e., ethical issues such as privacy, transpar-
ency, and potential bias). Summit participants felt that CHROs must truly play a leadership
role in these sorts of discussions. In addition, CHROs need to go beyond articulating values
and principles related to GenAI. GenAI technologies need a formal framework and struc-
ture for governance that includes accountability, values/principles, and a review process, and
CHROs must be intimately involved in creating these structures, principles, and processes.
After all, the ultimate accountability for any people-related GenAI outcomes/decisions (even
when purchased from a vendor) lies with the company (and especially the CHRO). Thus, com-
panies (under the direction of the CHRO) need to both seek assurances from the vendor up
front and then rigorously monitor the results post hoc to ensure that no bias impacts decisions.
This critical theme about the role of the CHRO in the GenAI revolution is reflected in
several of the specific HR sections that follow. We also summarize the CHRO-related
research questions that cut across HR areas in the final section of the paper.

From Summit Themes to HR Research Needs

Derived from the themes garnered at the Summit, we next highlight current practices and
associated research opportunities in six HR functional areas. The specific application of the
themes and identification of relevant research questions were driven by our academic content
experts, based on the combination of what they heard at the Summit as well as their extensive
scholarly knowledge of the HR area in question. Although all six Summit themes are relevant
across the HR functional areas, Table 2 highlights the most applicable and significant Summit
themes as they apply to each HR area and how they provide a foundation for exploring trans-
formative research opportunities and challenges in that area. This framework further high-
lights the role of HR functional research in addressing GenAI’s implications and challenges.
One topic of frequent discussion among Summit participants was differentiating AI use
on agentic dimensions. As we move into the context and research needs for each
2690   Journal of Management / July 2025

HR functional domain, it is useful to briefly discuss these types. Specific AI models or

platforms (e.g., ChatGPT) can be classified into three general types based on their agentic
properties and corresponding disruption. Because GenAI is evolving quickly, academic
research on a specific platform (e.g., ChatGPT) may be out of date by the time it is pub-
lished. GenAI learns, and so research must focus on foundational principles rather than
specific software (see McFarland & Ployhart [2015] for an example). The most basic type
of AI is an AI Assistant, which completes fairly routine, scripted actions. For example,
chatbots can answer common applicant questions with known answers. The next higher
level of agency is AI Copilot. This works in coordination with the user, often based on
GenAI (i.e., LLM), and employs data that may be housed within or outside the firm. For
example, Copilots generate process checks on interview decisions. Finally, the highest
level is called Autonomous AI. This type can perform tasks with limited, and in some
cases no, human direction. For example, Autonomous AI could identify a hiring need and
provide a list of potential prospects before a manager is even aware of the need. As the
agency increases (i.e., “less of a human in the loop,” Theme #4), there is an even greater
need for research to understand implications of these GenAI tools.

GenAI and Recruitment and Selection

The process of attracting (i.e., recruiting) and selecting human capital resources
needed for a job, role, and organization is referred to as talent acquisition (TA; Ployhart,
Weekley, & Dalzell, 2018). GenAI will radically transform and disrupt TA as we know
it (Campion & Campion, 2024; Woo, Tay, & Oswald, 2024). Here we focus on the cur-
rent context and research needs for TA implicated in the Summit themes (especially
Themes 1, 4, and 6).

Context: Practices, Opportunities, and Challenges

There are several potential use cases for GenAI in TA (see Table 3 for examples).
Throughout its 100-year history, the science and practice of TA has experienced many
technological innovations. Early research considered the fusion of humans and “machines”
in a way not so different than today’s conversations about humans and GenAI (Dunlap,
1947). From TA’s adoption of new technologies in the past, we know several things. First,
the learning curve is steep (in terms of operational challenges, legal risks, and ethical
dilemmas). Second, an early lack of regulatory guidance leads to a wide variety of prac-
tices that are of questionable legality. However, third, professional guidelines do not
change much with each evolution. Finally, the new technologies have led to operational
innovations that made TA faster, cheaper, and easier to implement, and many also increased
the candidate experience. Overall, GenAI has the potential to improve TA if it delivers
some combination of the implications shown in Table 3.
Currently the use of GenAI for recruitment seems the most immediately valuable oppor-
tunity with the least amount of risk, as expanding the pool of qualified talent has many ben-
efits for organizations and applicants. Use of GenAI for selection, on the other hand, is
currently being avoided by many firms at the Summit until there is clearer regulatory guid-
ance. We suggest this should be limited to AI Assistants and possibly AI Copilots, where the
technology is more transparent and its consequences clearer. For example, using GenAI to
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2691

Table 3
The Impact of GenAI on Talent Acquisition

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

Recruitment • GenAI can expand qualified talent • Steep learning curve

pools benefiting both organizations encompassing operational,
and applicants legal, and ethical challenges
Assessment and • Can assist interviewers in ensuring • Organizations hesitant
Selection job-relatedness and KSAO coverage to implement GenAI in
• Assess job-relevant KSAOs in new selection processes pending
ways that have not been possible or regulatory clarity
discovered yet
• Combine multiple KSAO scores
simultaneously in ways currently
not available with existing
technologies and methods
Strategic Alignment • Enables more strategic and • Need for appropriate
differentiated approaches in talent benchmarking against
acquisition traditional processes
Professional Practices • Opportunity to create competitive • Challenge of ensuring
advantage through strategic TA fair comparisons between
processes GenAI and existing
• Improve speed of TA process processes

assist interviewers by ensuring their questions are job-related and cover the relevant KSAOs
could add value by saving time, increasing validity, and reducing bias.

Research Questions and Needs

Table 4 provides a summary of areas where research can most advance TA-related science
and practice. First, it is important to ensure “fair” comparisons between GenAI and existing
TA processes. Current practice is always the benchmark against which new innovations are
evaluated. Human-dominated TA is far from perfect. Many of the reasons for not using
GenAI are based on a belief that human-dominated TA is an appropriate standard. For exam-
ple, “AI Agents are not transparent and can’t be trusted in hiring.” We know a lot about how
humans make decisions, but there are certainly many aspects of human decision-making
processes that remain unobservable. Human decision-makers also lack transparency to some
degree. Second, there is work required to identify the best approach that keeps humans “in
the loop” with TA. The field is not yet ready to turn over TA entirely to GenAI.
Research also needs to consider how GenAI can strategically influence the TA process
(Theme #6). Where does GenAI add to value creation and capture, where does human input
add to value creation and capture, and how are these elements best combined? Research
should consider ways that GenAI can make TA more differentiated and strategic. Such a “tal-
ent to value” approach offers a means of using TA to create competitive advantage by agile
creation and deployment of limited human capital resources (Barriere, Owens, & Pobereskin,
2018). GenAI might be the technology needed to make such precision-guided TA possible,
and such benefits are likely to apply to internal placement and classification as much as
external TA.
2692   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 4
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Talent Acquisition

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

New Talent • Most TA research to this point has focused on the technology and comparing the
Acquisition results of AI approaches to existing (human-oriented) approaches.
Practices • While this research should continue, it will be important for designers of GenAI to
work collaboratively with researchers familiar with TA practices and guidelines.
• However, for this research to have the most impact, it will be important to blend it
with the other themes summarized in this table.
Transparency • The transparency of GenAI systems is a consistent worry, particularly in TA.
However, humans are not necessarily fully transparent themselves in their processes
and decision-making.
• Researchers can assess how GenAI TA systems make decisions and whether GenAI
systems are able to be transparent enough in their parameters that they alleviate
concerns of both talent leaders and job seekers.
Human-Mediated TA • Humans will remain in some parts of the TA process, but the key questions are where
and how they should remain.
• Researchers should explore where humans and GenAI aid value creation and capture
when used as complements to one another.
• Researchers should identify optimal configurations of human-GenAI interaction in TA.
GenAI to Create • TA is a strategic function of the organization that can create competitive advantage.
Talent Advantage • Researchers should explore how GenAI can generate competitive advantage through
identification of critical roles and specifying the types of KSAOs most crucial for
them.
• Researchers should also study how GenAI aids the creation and deployment of limited
human capital resources—internal or external—in an agile way.

GenAI and Training and Development

Context: Practices, Opportunities, and Challenges
At the Summit, it became clear that many organizations are using GenAI for training and
development (T&D) and see great potential in this (see Table 5 for a summary; these practices
and the related research needs are especially relevant to Summit Themes 1, 3, 5, and 6). For
example, GenAI can automate creation of individualized employee development plans, saving
time and cost while also ensuring that the development plan is robust and tied to opportunities
within the organization. More foundationally, it can also identify competency models based
on other practices and documents in the organization and then create both development plans
and training opportunities that are tied to these competency models. Both employees and
managers report the resulting information to be vastly more helpful than prior development
plans (both more comprehensive and more personalized, especially because it allows for
aggregation of multiple data sources). At the same time, there are challenges around data pri-
vacy, and we need longer term research on the effects of the loss of “human touch” in this area.
There are also broader T&D implications of the GenAI revolution. Summit participants
widely believed that the greatest impact of GenAI will be how it radically transforms the
work performed (and therefore the characteristics required) by employees (Theme #1). As
one HR leader noted, “GenAI is not going to replace you [in your job]. Somebody who
knows how to work with GenAI is going to replace you!” Accordingly, on the minds of all
Summit participants (especially the CHROs, Theme #6) was the question of “what is the
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2693

Table 5
The Impact of GenAI on Training and Development

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

Individual • Can automate creation of individualized • Concerns around data

Development employee development plans privacy
Planning • Enables aggregation of multiple data • Potential negative effects
sources for more comprehensive planning from loss of “human touch”
• Produces more helpful and personalized
information than prior approaches
Competency • Can identify competency models based on • Need to validate the
Development organizational practices and documents accuracy and relevance of
• Ability to create development plans tied AI-generated competency
to organizational opportunities models
• Can create training opportunities based on
competency models
Workforce • Enables radical transformation of work • Employees must develop
Transformation performed by employees new skills to work
• Opportunity for continuous adaptation to effectively with GenAI
changing skill requirements • Risk that “somebody who
knows how to work with
GenAI is going to replace
you”
Foundational Skills • Opportunity to develop critical thinking • Challenge of developing
Development and higher-level skills wisdom and judgment when
• Focus on developing curiosity and basic tasks are automated
learning agility • Risk of losing important
developmental experiences
through automation
Organizational • Opportunity to give employees hands-on • Need to balance
Learning and experience with GenAI before it becomes experimentation with
Experimentation mission-critical operational effectiveness
• Enables active learning through • Challenge of creating safe
experimentation spaces for learning and error-
making with new technology

reskilling and upskilling necessary to help employees adapt to these changes?” This is, of
course, a T&D question.

Research Questions and Needs

There are several pressing questions in this area, questions that T&D scholars are uniquely
qualified to help answer; these questions are summarized in Table 6. What KSAOs are most rel-
evant in the wake of GenAI? What are the employee skills needed to work with AI, which of these
are most appropriately developed versus selected for, and how can we best evaluate these skills in
people? For example, curiosity and learning agility will likely be essential, as well as characteris-
tics related to engaging in constant experimentation with GenAI (including and especially at the
level of individual contributors). In addition, if GenAI is going to be “the great first draft” (as
mentioned several times at the Summit) that someone must review and edit, this puts renewed
emphasis on these competencies. Interestingly, compared to many extant competencies, GenAI-
related skills are likely to be highly generalizable across organizations, suggesting that researchers
2694   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 6
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Training and Development

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

Critical Competencies • What KSAOs are most relevant in the wake of GenAI?
• What employee skills are needed to work with AI?
• Which skills are more appropriately developed versus selected for?
• How can we best evaluate these skills in people?
• How can curiosity and learning agility be effectively developed?
Development Methods • How best to develop GenAI-related competencies in the current workforce?
• What active learning approaches encourage employees to explore and learn
from errors?
• How can organizations supplement the development of critical competencies
when basic tasks are automated?
Educational Implications • How must secondary and post-secondary education adjust to prepare the future
workforce?
• What changes are needed in educational institutions to develop higher-level
thinking skills?
• How can organizations fill gaps if educational institutions do not adjust quickly
enough?
Expertise Development • How will automation of basic tasks affect the development of domain
expertise?
• What happens to wisdom and judgment development when transactional tasks
are delegated to GenAI?
• How can organizations supplement the development of expertise without
traditional entry-level experiences?

have an especially critical role to play in identifying and investigating these constructs. Non-
governmental organizations (e.g., the World Economic Forum, 2016, 2018) have been working to
map job transitions and predict demand for different skills related to this transformation; academ-
ics need to contribute to these conversations.
Second, there is the critical question of how best to develop these competencies in the cur-
rent (and future) workforce. A Summit presenter suggested that organizations need to give
employees a chance to experiment with GenAI technology before it becomes “mission critical”
for their jobs. Academics likely have valuable advice to offer in terms of active learning
approaches (i.e., error management training) that encourage employees to proactively explore
and to make and learn from errors (Bell, Tannenbaum, Ford, Noe, & Kraiger, 2017). In addi-
tion, Summit participants argued that these sorts of competencies will significantly change
what organizations need from secondary and post-secondary education (e.g., more emphasis on
higher-level thinking skills). If our educational institutions do not adjust sufficiently or quickly
enough to this demand, organizations will need to fill the gap. Another provocative question
tied to this issue was posed at the Summit: if we need employees with the wisdom and experi-
ence to effectively edit and improve GenAI outputs (and to serve as the “human in the loop”),
what happens if we remove the opportunities to develop this wisdom and judgment by virtue of
having delegated the component transactional tasks to GenAI? A generation from now, how are
we going to supplement the development of these critical competencies most effectively?
We believe that there are broad risks related to the reduction of development opportunities
due to the automation of basic tasks in various fields, and organizations are going to have to
be mindful of the implications of this for developing talent. It is well established that early
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2695

entry into an occupation (MacDonald, 1988) and deliberate practice (“the individualized
training activities specially designed by a coach or teacher to improve specific aspects of an
individual's performance through repetition and successive refinement,” Ericsson &
Lehmann, 1996: 278–279) play a significant role in the development of domain expertise and
the emergence of stardom (Call, Nyberg, & Thatcher, 2015). For many novice learners, this
happens through engagement with relatively routine and potentially automatable activities
early in their careers. Think, for example, of a lawyer working their way through cases in the
law library, or a software engineer writing or debugging code. When these formative experi-
ences are no longer available, how will this impact the development of the domain experi-
ence necessary to achieve exceptional performance? For example, Beane (2019) highlighted
the ineffectiveness of traditional training practices in the context of robotic surgery. Indeed,
the emergence of what he termed “shadow learning” in response to these limitations led to
further challenges, including hyper-specialization and a decreasing supply of experts relative
to demand. Thus, the impact of the automation of critical foundational experiences on the
attainment of the KSAOs required to enable exceptional performance is an important empiri-
cal question. How we can supplement the absence of these experiences through formal edu-
cation, on-the-job learning, and employee-led upskilling, is an important challenge
(Dell’Acqua et al., 2023), and one with which HR researchers must engage.

GenAI and Performance Management

Performance management (PM) is defined as “a continuous process of identifying, measur-
ing, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the
strategic goals of the organization” (Aguinis, 2013: 2). There is both a question of how GenAI
can be used for tasks within PM (i.e., how GenAI might revolutionize PM itself), as well as a
question of what the GenAI age means for PM in organizations (i.e., how PM needs to evolve to
support the GenAI revolution). Both questions are important and tied to Summit themes (espe-
cially Themes 1, 3, 4, and 5), and can be used to chart the course of future work in this area.

Context: Practices, Opportunities, and Challenges

As Table 7 shows, there are several potential use cases for GenAI in PM, many of which are
being tried by Summit participants (see also Varma, Pereira, & Patel, 2024). These include
using GenAI to identify performance objectives and key results, write employee performance
reviews, and even provide feedback and coaching. Interestingly (for PM researchers), it was
suggested at the Summit that PM may in fact represent the area of greatest initial opportunity
for GenAI in HR, for a few reasons. For one, because PM tends to be dreaded and despised by
employees and managers alike (e.g., Adler et al., 2016; Ewenstein, Hancock, & Komm, 2016),
this may be an area where initial buy-in for GenAI will be greater (Theme #3). Managers may
embrace a tool that removes much of the time-consuming and perceived low value-added com-
ponents of PM; and employees, who have never been fond of how managers evaluate their
performance, might be less resistant to having this managerial task automated. Moreover, every
minute a manager does not need to spend in a transactional HR process is time they can devote
to something of higher value. And managers spend a great deal of time conducting perfor-
mance evaluations and reviews (e.g., 2 million hours a year at Deloitte; Buckingham & Goodall,
2015). Thus, the potential benefits in terms of time-savings as well as employee and manager
2696   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 7
The Impact of GenAI on Performance Management

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

Performance Objectives • Specify performance objectives • Adjusting standards and goals

and Reviews and key results from prior data to reflect current conditions
• Automate creation of performance • Adverse manager and
reviews employee reactions due to
• Identify competency models and minimal participation
exemplary employees • Loss of human touch
Multiple Data Source • Aggregate multiple data sources • Ensuring data privacy and
Integration (performance metrics, peer security
feedback, customer reviews) • Risk of overlooking unique or
• Summarize multiple sources of important data points
qualitative performance data • Potential perpetuation of
• Real-time, comprehensive insights biases
Feedback and Coaching • Chatbots and virtual assistants can • Loss of human touch in
Systems offer feedback and coaching feedback process
• More frequent, real-time feedback • Questions about validity/utility
• Frees managers to focus on higher- of generated recommendations
value tasks • Employee reaction uncertainty
PM Tools and • Can generate PM tools, templates, • HR expertise required to adapt
Templates and rubrics and utilize tools appropriately
• Provides user-friendly interface for • Aligns with organization’s
accessing employee information culture and needs
• Support standardization of PM • Challenge of maintaining
processes appropriate human oversight
Decision Support • Provides recommendations on • Need to balance algorithmic
ratings, development plans, and and human judgment
decisions • Challenge of explaining AI-
• Enables data-driven decision- influenced decisions
making • Risk of over-reliance on
• Facilitates more objective automated recommendations
evaluation processes
Resource Optimization • Significant time and cost savings • Need to balance efficiency
• Valuable resource for smaller gains with quality concerns
organizations with limited HR staff • Challenge of maintaining
• More comprehensive and real-time appropriate human oversight
insights • Sacrifice quality for efficiency

buy-in suggest that the PM function may be an excellent candidate for early adoption of GenAI
in organizations. Yet, ultimately, employee and manager reactions to GenAI for PM is, of
course, an empirical question, and we need additional research in this area.

Research Questions and Needs

Our knowledge of PM suggests several areas that researchers should study to help practi-
tioners with whether and how to capitalize on this opportunity (see summary of research
agenda in Table 8). First, the goal of any effective PM system should be to help managers
make the best decisions possible about their people, ideally with the least complexity possi-
ble (Effron & Ort, 2010). With GenAI, it appears (based on Summit examples) that PM data
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2697

Table 8
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Performance Management

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

Evaluation Criteria • How do employees and managers react to GenAI in PM tasks?

• What skills do managers and employees develop from GenAI-enabled PM?
• How can we evaluate output quality regarding accuracy, validity, and bias?
• How can organizations balance multiple evaluative criteria and tradeoffs?
Human Judgment • When and where should human judgment play a role in GenAI-enabled PM?
Integration • How does GenAI-enabled PM influence managerial accountability?
• How can managers effectively explain AI-influenced decisions to employees?
• What is the optimal way to hold managers accountable for decisions?
• How does GenAI-enabled PM influence managerial capability over time?
Feedback and Coaching • Is human-provided feedback superior to GenAI-enabled feedback?
• How can organizations optimize the combination of human and AI feedback?
• What are the long-term implications for employee development?
• How can feedback systems maintain personal connection while leveraging AI?
Expertise Development • How will automation of lower-level tasks affect employee motivation and burnout?
• What is the optimal allocation of time freed up by GenAI?
• How does GenAI impact employee engagement with the PM process?
• What are the psychological effects of AI-driven performance management?

can be made available to managers via a single, user-friendly interface (e.g., GenAI can
overlay all employee information systems, such that a manager can query anything about
their people and have it instantly answered); this is exciting! Yet, even this single example
illustrates the relevance and complexity of Theme #5 regarding the necessity of thinking
about GenAI outcomes in a multidimensional way. The importance of multiple evaluative
criteria for PM will become more important as GenAI assumes responsibility for some of
these processes. For example, PM researchers would argue that efficiency is not a sufficient
criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of GenAI-driven PM, given all that PM supports.
We also need to know how both employees and managers react to the use of GenAI in PM
(Budhwar et al., 2023), as well as what they learn and what skills they develop (see model of
PM evaluative criteria by Schleicher, Baumann, Sullivan, & Yim, 2019). The quality of the
outputs/decisions coming from PM (e.g., ratings; developmental recommendations; poten-
tial, promotion, and compensation decisions) will need to be carefully evaluated for their
accuracy, validity, potential biases, and ethicality (Theme #4). Research should be directed to
uncovering likely trade-offs across criteria (including at different levels) when GenAI is used
for PM (e.g., improvements in efficiency may come with an increased risk of bias). What
trade-offs are we (should we be) comfortable with?
Second, there is an important question of where does, and where should, human judgment
play a role in GenAI-enabled PM tasks (Theme #4). In the case of PM, a “human in the loop”
might mean that GenAI provides summary performance information and even recommenda-
tions around ratings, promotions, potential, and bonuses, but it is the human manager who
actually makes and is held accountable for the decision. However, this does not have to be
the only model. An interesting research question is what the quality of the decision looks like
under different models (e.g., GenAI providing data and recommendations to managers vs.
GenAI also making the decision on ratings or promotions). Also, if GenAI serves as data
aggregator and recommender, and manager as decision-maker, what is the optimal way to
2698   Journal of Management / July 2025

hold managers accountable for their decisions (and to ensure they can explain them to
employees), when they were not responsible for the upstream parts of the process? Another
intriguing question is what this “outsourcing” of PM-related tasks to GenAI does, over time,
to managerial capabilities, and how it might fundamentally change the role of the manager
within PM (Boon & den Hartog, forthcoming).
Third, even if GenAI is used “just” to create the performance reports and to recommend
ratings, it was noted at the Summit that this would still free up manager time to spend on
“higher value” aspects of PM, like feedback and coaching. This argument assumes that feed-
back and coaching are something that managers can do well, yet there is ample evidence to
suggest they cannot (e.g., Milner & Milner, 2018). Moreover, this begs the question of
whether GenAI might not, in fact, be better at these elements of PM than are human manag-
ers. In terms of research, it must be asked: What do we know about the value that employees
extract from coaching (e.g., role clarity, skill acquisition; Dahling, Taylor, Chau, & Dwight,
2016; Liu & Batt, 2010; Riordan et al., in press), and must this come from a human? More
generally, we should not take as a foregone conclusion that these “higher-level” tasks are
always going to exist for humans (despite arguments to the contrary); is it not at least possible
that we might find, in subsequent evolutions of AI, that many of the higher-level tasks (e.g.,
providing feedback to or coaching direct reports, or interacting with customers) are also done
equally well, or even better, by GenAI?

GenAI and Job and Work Design

Job and work design focuses on structuring, organizing, and defining the roles and responsi-
bilities of employees to optimize work processes and enhance performance, satisfaction, and
well-being. It involves both determining specific tasks and responsibilities that make up a job,
and how these are done (job design), as well as broader issues around how work is structured and
organized within the organization (work design; Grant, Fried, Parker, & Frese, 2010). Work
design also considers the impact of technology and organizational changes on work processes
and employee roles (Becker & Huselid, 2010), which, in recent years, has included the rise of
knowledge work, increasing use of technology, and a growing emphasis on employee autonomy
and flexibility. Undoubtedly, and as reflected in the themes from the Summit (especially Themes
1, 3, and 6), the GenAI revolution will fundamentally change the nature of work and jobs, bring-
ing with it major implications for job and work design from both a practical (e.g., how can
GenAI tools assist with job and work design) and a scholarly (i.e., what job/work design research
questions need to be addressed to help facilitate the GenAI revolution) perspective.

Context: Practices, Opportunities, and Challenges

As shared via examples from Summit participants, using GenAI to improve job analysis
represents some obvious “low hanging fruit.” Job analysis is foundational to recruitment and
selection as well as many other areas of HR, but it is usually shortchanged in practice because
of the resource demands to do it right. GenAI offers a means to conduct job analyses more
comprehensively and frequently (allowing continuous updating). More accurate specifica-
tion of job demands (via GenAI tools) offers the potential for both better TA and better PM.
GenAI is also being used to enhance job performance measurement, fundamental to many
aspects of job and work design interventions, and GenAI will continue to play a role in
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2699

Table 9
The Impact of GenAI on Job and Work Design

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

Job Analysis and • Conduct more comprehensive and frequent • Need to validate AI-generated
Documentation job analyses job analyses
• Enable continuous updating of job • Challenge of keeping pace
requirements with rapidly changing job
• Improve accuracy of job performance requirements
measurement
Work Process • Possible elimination of lower-level tasks • Not all employees may want to
Transformation • Allow employees to focus on higher-level focus solely on higher-level tasks
activities • Potential reduction in skill
• Create opportunities for optimization of variety
work processes • Risk of adverse effects on
employee motivation
Strategic Work • Help identify work that creates competitive • Challenge of balancing strategic
Alignment advantage needs with employee preferences
• Enable better understanding of value- • Need to maintain organizational
generating activities effectiveness during
• Facilitate identification of critical roles transformation
Profession-Wide • Opportunity for standardization across • Monumental task of reskilling
Redesign organizations and redesigning majority of jobs
• Potential for industry-wide competency • Need for coordination across
modeling organizations
• Greater similarity in roles across companies
Job Crafting and • Potential for more dynamic and flexible • Uncertainty about how job
Customization job designs crafting functions with GenAI
• Opportunity for personalization of work • Challenge of maintaining job
roles identity and meaning
• Enable better matching of tasks to
individual capabilities

helping design high-quality work that benefits talent in the organization (Zhang & Parker,
2023). Table 9 provides a summary of several practices, opportunities, and challenges for
GenAI in job and work design.

Research Questions and Needs

There are also myriad opportunities for future research, both in job design and in broader
questions of work design (these are summarized in Table 10). In fact, Summit participants
thought the areas of job and task design were especially pressing areas of research if our goal
was to facilitate the GenAI revolution. For example, reskilling for and redesigning a majority
of jobs (discussed as a likely need in the wake of GenAI) is a monumental task. However, as
mused at the Summit, it is probably not a task that needs to proceed organization by organiza-
tion, but rather profession by profession, and job role by job role. In other words, with the
GenAI revolution, there is likely to be more similarity in roles across companies than seen
with extant competency modeling. That makes academics uniquely situated to lead these
efforts. But we need to understand how to manage this (e.g., ONET?), and we may need to
both dust off and rethink our old job analysis and job design skills.
2700   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 10
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Job and Work Design

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

Job Analysis • How can job analysis methods be updated for the GenAI era?
Evolution • How should organizations manage large-scale redesign of jobs?
• What is the best way to coordinate profession-wide job redesign?
Employee Experience • What are the implications of having everyone “practice at the top of their license”?
and Motivation • How does reduction in task variety affect employee motivation?
• What does job crafting mean and look like in this context?
• How can organizations balance strategic needs with employee preferences?
Strategic Value • How can GenAI-enabled job design identify work that creates competitive advantage?
Creation • Which roles are most critical in generating value?
• What KSAOs are needed to perform in value-generating roles?
• How do pivotal positions change due to GenAI?
• How does this affect the identification of strategically critical roles?

An intriguing question asked by some of the Summit participants was what the implica-
tions are of having everyone “practice at the top of their license” (to borrow a phrase from
the nursing profession). That is, stripping employees’ work of the lower-level transactional
tasks (which are delegated to GenAI) and leaving only the higher-level activities begs the
question: Does everyone want to spend more time on the higher-level activities (Theme #3)?
Would this reduce the skill variety (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) of a position and potentially
have adverse consequences in terms of employee motivation (or burnout), particularly among
those who have a lower need for personal growth and development? Related, what does job
crafting (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) mean and look like in this context?
Viewing job and work design in the wake of GenAI from a strategic perspective (see
Becker & Huselid [2010] for a discussion of integrating job design and strategic HRM)
reveals additional areas for inquiry, ones with likely immediate practical application. For
example, there is a need to identify where GenAI adds value to the work that creates com-
petitive advantage. Research should also consider how GenAI-enabled job/work design
can be used to identify the types of work that contribute most to firm competitive advan-
tage, which roles are most critical in generating value, and which KSAOs are needed to
perform in those roles.
Related, and in line with theorizing in strategic HRM, the nature of the job is likely to
impact significantly on the pressing question on the minds of HR leaders regarding how
GenAI will impact on performance. Insights from “pivotal positions” (i.e., those jobs which
are central to organizational strategy and where we see the greatest variability in the quality
or quantity of output when the quality or quantity of employees in those roles increases) offer
a useful lens to think about the potential differential value generation of GenAI in particular
jobs (Collings, Mellahi, & Cascio, 2019). As the pace of development in GenAI is currently
so rapid, we will likely see a high degree of volatility. Dell’Acqua and colleagues’ (2023)
concept of the “jagged technological frontier,” where tasks that appear to be of similar diffi-
culty may be either performed better or worse by GenAI, nicely captures the current uncer-
tainty around the impact of GenAI on jobs. They conclude that how GenAI impacts work will
involve careful analysis of how human interaction with AI will evolve based on where tasks
sit on this frontier, and how the frontier will change over time. To gain better insight into how
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2701

Table 11
The Impact of GenAI on Talent Management

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

High Performance • Potential to improve performance • Need to redefine star

Management via pattern recognition performance for GenAI era
• Can capture and disseminate • Uncertainty about performance
productive worker behaviors differential impacts
• Ability to identify new • Risk of reduced performance
performance indicators gaps between stars and others
Performance • Disproportionate benefits for • Questions about ceiling on
Development lower-skilled workers performance improvements
• Make patterns and processes • Challenge of transferring star
more transparent performance across contexts
• Enable learning from high • Uncertainty about long-term
performers development implications
Dynamic Job • Facilitate more dynamic • Risk of excessive control
Matching alignment of talent versus employee autonomy
• Build comprehensive skills • Potential breakdown of
profiles traditional job structures
• Identify development • Challenge of balancing growth
opportunities and gaps and stability
Internal Talent • Democratize talent management • Need for appropriate guardrails
Marketplaces opportunities • Challenge of maintaining
• Make opportunities more visible career progression
• Enable more individualized • Risk to personal identity and
approaches stability
Skills-based Talent • Better identification of • Complexity of skills
Approaches capabilities assessment and validation
• More precise matching of talent • Challenge of maintaining
to opportunities strategic focus
• Enhanced development pathways • Need to balance individual and
organizational needs

pivotal jobs change due to GenAI, research should focus on questions such as which tasks
can be replaced by GenAI, and which ones are better done by humans? How does GenAI
change which tasks and jobs are of most strategic value to the company? What does this
imply for the identification of pivotal positions?

GenAI and Talent Management

Talent management (TM) can be defined as the attraction, selection, development, and
retention of the highest-performing employees in a firm’s pivotal positions (Collings et al.,
2019). Thus, an organization’s high performing and high potential employees are critical
to the conceptualization and operationalization of TM, and TM represents a differentiated
approach to managing those employees. As suggested by trends and use cases shared at the
Summit (especially Themes 1, 2, 3, and 5), GenAI is already impacting TM in a few ways
and is likely to continue to challenge some of our assumptions and practices around what
talent is and how talent should be identified and deployed in organizations, opening impor-
tant directions for research (see Tables 11 and 12 for summaries). Here we focus on the
2702   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 12
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Talent Management

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

Star Performance • How do traditional conceptions of star performance need to be redefined?

Evolution • Which KSAOs are needed to become/be identified as a star?
• What antecedents of exceptional performance will remain beyond GenAI?
• How does GenAI affect transferability of star performance?
Performance • What is the ceiling on GenAI performance improvements?
Differential Impact • How will GenAI affect performance gaps between top and average performers?
• What implications emerge for identifying and developing high potentials?
Talent Matching • How do individuals interact with GenAI-based matching tools?
Systems • How do they interpret and attach meaning to proposed matches?
• What are the outcomes of matching tools for individual performance?
• How does matching affect career trajectories?
Skills-based • What does a skills-based approach mean for identifying stars?
Implementation • How should high potentials be managed in skills-based systems?
• What career paths emerge in deconstructed job environments?
Data and Validation • How does data capture affect match accuracy?
• What validation methods ensure effective matching?
• How can organizations maintain data quality and currency?

current context and related research needs in two main areas: (a) how GenAI is likely to
impact employee performance and challenge assumptions about antecedents of high per-
formance and the differential performance between stars and other employees; and (b) how
GenAI is likely to impact job matching, with implications for how talent is identified and
deployed in organizations.

The Impact of GenAI on (High) Performance: Context and Research Needs

GenAI has the potential to significantly disrupt assumptions around the nature of excep-
tional performance in organizations (Theme #1). While some argue that much of the disrup-
tion emerging from AI will be to lower skilled work, there is increasing recognition that
GenAI is likely to be transformative at all levels. It may require re-evaluation of taken for
granted conductors and insulators of star performance (Aguinis, O’Boyle, Gonzalez-Mulé, &
Joo, 2016) and the boundary conditions of differential performance at individual and job
levels (Kehoe, Collings, & Cascio, 2023). As Brnjolfsson, Li, and Raymon highlight, a dis-
tinguishing characteristic of GenAI is that it can learn to perform tasks in the absence of
instructions, “including tasks requiring tacit knowledge that could previously only be gained
through lived experience” (2023: 2). Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin, and Rock (2023) catego-
rize emerging GenAI tools as an entirely new category of automation, with abilities intersect-
ing with the most educated, most creative, and most highly paid workers; thus, the impacts
of GenAI are expected to be the greatest on those workers (Dell’Acqua et al., 2023). This
means that star performers—those who display the highest levels of performance often com-
bined with high and sustained visibility and social capital (Call et al., 2015)—are likely to be
very affected by GenAI. To understand this impact, research should explore how traditional
conceptions of star performance need to be redefined due to the influence of GenAI. For
example, employees may need different combinations of KSAOs to be(come) identified as a
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2703

star or a high potential; some KSAOs may reduce in importance while new ones may emerge
as significant. A key question is how this might change the indicators of potential that orga-
nizations should consider in their high potential programs.
GenAI may also narrow performance differentials between star and non-stars, owing to
the capacity to capture and disseminate the most productive workers’ behavior patterns
(Brnjolfsson et al., 2023). There might be large benefits for non-star performers if GenAI
makes patterns and processes more transparent, enabling learning and development (Theme
#2). For example, studies across customer service agents (Brynjolfsson, Li, & Raymond,
2025), law examinations (Choi & Schwarcz, in press), and mid-level professional writing
(Noy & Zhang, 2023) show performance benefits of GenAI disproportionately accruing to
lower skilled or less experienced workers. Indeed, Dell’Acqua and colleagues’ (2023)
research on realistic, complex, and knowledge-intensive tasks among business consultants
confirmed the differential performance benefits of GenAI: those below the average perfor-
mance threshold increased performance by 43% and those above it increased by 17%. Choi
and Schwarcz (in press: 6) conclude that “AI assistance will most benefit those at the bottom
of the skill distribution, potentially acting as an equalizing force in a notoriously unequal
profession” (i.e., law). If GenAI significantly alters the distribution of individual perfor-
mance, narrowing the gap between the best and the rest, this raises questions for TM. For
example, what antecedents of exceptional performance will remain beyond the realms of
GenAI? What is the ceiling on the performance improvements of GenAI? How does GenAI
impact the transferability of star performance from one organizational context to others,
given the challenges of transferring star performance across contexts (Kehoe et al., 2023)?

The Impact of AI on Job Matching: Context and Research Needs

Job matching is “the process by which individuals are dynamically aligned with organi-
zations and the situations (roles, jobs, tasks, etc.) within them” (Weller, Hymer, Nyberg, &
Ebert 2019: 189), and GenAI will likely facilitate more dynamic matching (Jooss, Collings,
McMackin, & Dickmann, 2024). This contrasts with traditional approaches to TM, charac-
terized by a more “static” and “stock” perspective on human capital (Collings et al., 2019).
The emerging “flow” or “process” perspective (Burton-Jones & Spender, 2011) provides
for a more dynamic approach to managing talent (Ployhart, Weekley, & Ramsey, 2009).
Internal talent marketplaces, for example, build skills profiles based on inferences from
employees’ education and work experience to identify opportunities and/or development
gaps, as well as how these may be bridged through project/job assignments, mentoring, or
training (Jooss et al., 2024). Such tools are democratizing TM by making opportunities
more visible to a wider group of employees, while also offering a more individualized
approach (Theme #3). The value of posting job roles to make them more visible, versus
slotting preordained candidates into such roles without an open call, has been shown to
lead to better outcomes for organizations and individuals (Keller, 2018), and it seems likely
that GenAI can facilitate these processes.
At the same time, the wider trend of job deconstruction (which includes internal talent mar-
ketplaces) has been subject to increasing critiques. For example, the specific role descriptions
and clear criteria for evaluation of deconstructed jobs combined with performance data can lead
to greater control rather than employee autonomy; to the potential breakdown of traditional job
structures that have been central to personal identity, stability, and career progression; and to an
2704   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 13
The Impact of GenAI on Compensation and Benefits

Context and Practices Opportunities Challenges

Dynamic Pay • Enable mass-produced tailored • Need to balance standardization with

Systems compensation packages personalization
• Adapt to individual preferences and • Challenge of maintaining internal equity
performance • Risk of creating unsustainable
• Allow modeling of potential pay expectations
outcomes
Predictive Analytics • Increase accuracy and speed in pricing • Need to validate data quality
and Real-Time jobs • Challenge of maintaining data currency
Adaptation • Better and more timely market • Risk of over-responding to market
comparison fluctuations
• Facilitate real-time market adjustments
• Improve salary benchmarking and job
grading
Fairness, • Help identify pay inequities and their • Risk of perpetuating historical biases
Transparency, and sources • Need to balance transparency with
Security • Reduce human biases in compensation privacy
decisions • Challenge of explaining AI-driven
• Enable more transparent pay processes decisions
• Facilitate compliance monitoring • Concerns about data privacy and security
Work and • Can facilitate optimal bonus • Risk of losing high performers due to
Compensation budget allocation increased transparency
Integration • Better connect pay to performance • Challenge of separating individual and
• Enable more sophisticated reward AI contributions
systems • Need to adjust for GenAI productivity
• Potential for making work more gains
interesting • Questions about impact on employment
and time spent working

(im)balance between individual growth and stability in these systems (Rogiers & Collings,
2024). These authors argue that the key to navigating these tensions is putting in place guard-
rails to ensure that neither extreme becomes dominant to the detriment of the other. These
complexities suggest questions for future research on the role of GenAI in matching in TM. For
example, how do individuals interact with these tools and how do they interpret and attach
meaning to the GenAI-proposed matches? What does a skills-based approach mean for identi-
fying stars and high potentials and for managing and developing them? What might career
trajectories look like for high potentials and stars in these emerging contexts?

GenAI and Compensation and Benefits

Context: Practices, Opportunities, and Challenges
Compensation and benefits include “all forms of financial returns (e.g., salary, bonus,
stock) and tangible services and benefits employees receive as part of an employment rela-
tionship” (Gerhart, 2023: 14). Related to Theme #2—that companies will compete on the
quality and quantity of data—GenAI is likely to increase accuracy, efficiency, and speed in
pricing jobs and employees, especially in dynamic markets (see Table 13 for a summary of
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2705

practices, opportunities, and challenges). Efficiency increases arise from GenAI’s capacity to
provide better and more timely information to applicants, employees, and employers, facili-
tating quicker, more accurate matches, and reducing mismatches. For example, Summit par-
ticipants shared that GenAI can facilitate optimal allocations of bonus budgets based on a
comprehensive analysis of internal and external data (i.e., performance, market conditions,
and internal equity). We have already seen increased information availability due to technol-
ogy (e.g., job search and networking websites) and regulatory changes like pay disclosure/
transparency laws (Brown, Nyberg, Weller, & Strizver, 2022). Increases in information
exchange via GenAI could further reduce labor market friction, creating better matches and
value (Gerhart & Feng, 2021).
Whether this greater information and transparency that can accompany GenAI-based
compensation will increase procedural fairness perceptions (Theme #4) depends on pay sys-
tem quality (Alterman, Bamberger, Wang, Koopmann, Belogolovsky, & Shi, 2021). If GenAI
helps explain the relationship between pay and performance in organizations where they are
better connected, it could lead, in part via higher perceived fairness, to higher individual and
organizational performance and employee pay satisfaction (Trevor, Reilly, & Gerhart, 2012).
In the face of high employee mobility, as well as reduced friction in the labor market due to
better information, sorting effects could also become stronger, meaning an increased risk to
employers of losing high performers when they perceive their pay would better reflect their
performance elsewhere (e.g., Gerhart, 2023; Nyberg, 2010).
An overarching compensation-related issue will be a new twist on an old challenge: how
to separate and evaluate a worker’s contributions in the face of interdependence, but now the
interdependence is with GenAI rather than other (human) workers. In areas where GenAI
capabilities are standardized across organizations, this will likely be less of a challenge than
in jobs where GenAI is either more tailored to the organization or where the organization has
developed a nonstandard way to leverage GenAI.

Research Questions and Needs

In Table 14, we identify four broad areas where future research should examine how,
when, where, and why GenAI may influence compensation (especially related to Themes 1,
2, 4, and 6). We highlight a few of these here.
GenAI may enable dynamic pay systems through mass-produced tailored compensation
packages based on individual preferences and performance. Previous individualization attempts
(e.g., cafeteria-style benefits) have had mixed results. However, if employees can access accu-
rate and trusted tools that explain the link between pay and performance and can model poten-
tial pay outcomes under various scenarios in an understandable format, such systems could
make tailored approaches viable (e.g., Abdulsalam, Maltarich, Nyberg, Reilly, & Martin, 2021;
Maltarich, Nyberg, Reilly, Abdulsalam, & Martin, 2017). This could revolutionize compensa-
tion strategy, and it suggests several research questions. Regarding real-time adaptation, GenAI
may enable continuous adjustments to compensation strategies based on the external market
and internal performance, driving greater relevance to evolving needs. This opens new areas of
investigation, and research will need to examine and explain real differences resulting from
such compensation changes, differentiating them from Hawthorne effects.
Questions around how organizations can and should integrate GenAI and human deci-
sion-making in compensation raise concerns of fairness, transparency, and security (Theme
2706   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 14
AI-Relevant Research Questions and Needs in Compensation and Benefits

Context and Practices Research Questions and Needs

Dynamic Systems • How can organizations effectively implement dynamic pay systems?
Implementation • What structures best support personalized compensation?
• How should organizations evaluate system effectiveness?
Analytics and • How can compensation systems adapt to rapid market changes?
Adaptation • What are the implications of reduced labor market friction?
• How will real-time adaptation affect employee behavior and satisfaction?
Fairness and Security • How and when will AI reduce versus exacerbate bias?
• What are the effects of increased compensation transparency?
• How can organizations ensure ethical treatment of employee data?
Work-Compensation • How should organizations separate and evaluate worker contributions with GenAI?
Alignment • What happens when GenAI enables work to take less time?
• How will performance differences be affected by GenAI?
• How should compensation strategy evolve with GenAI implementation?

#4). Will—or, more precisely, when will—GenAI insights into compensation decisions
require human judgment? Summit attendees highlighted the ethical imperative to “keep
humans in the loop” regarding decision-making responsibility, but how long will this be
necessary/helpful when it comes to compensation? Regarding work’s relationship with com-
pensation, the efficiency gains from GenAI suggest that work could take less time. Pay is
often based on an expected number of hours worked (e.g., a 40-hour work week). What hap-
pens if fewer employees produce more in less time? How compensation could and should
account for changes in time spent working is a challenging issue with societal implications
that researchers should address.
Finally, we identify a more general research need in this area. As Summit participants
reminded us, GenAI implementation must start with the organization’s strategy, including
its strategy for compensation (Nyberg et al., 2023; Theme #6). It will be tempting to reach
quick conclusions about GenAI’s impact, but we must remain grounded in theory and
empirics to avoid becoming overly influenced by fads that lead to flawed conclusions,
including and perhaps especially in the area of compensation. In reviewing trends in pay
for performance research, Fulmer, Gerhart, and Kim (2023) highlight the importance of
theory and empirical research to understand the implications of compensation strategies;
this will both be more possible and more important as organizations embrace GenAI. The
reliance on GenAI-driven compensation decisions could inadvertently introduce biases or
overlook nuanced aspects of human judgment. Thus, following the perspective of Fulmer
et al., (2023), we advocate here for a research agenda that explores the innovative applica-
tions of GenAI in compensation while also critically examining its alignment with and
impact on established compensation theories.

Other Research Needs at the GenAI-Hr Interface

The preceding sections discussed research questions tied to Summit themes for spe-
cific HR functional areas. There are also pressing research needs that cut across HR areas,
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2707

and we summarize these in this section (and in Table 15). This includes research related
to ethics and the role of CHROs (previously discussed under Themes), as well as two
other data science topics that have implications across HR areas: bias mitigation and deci-
sion rights, discussed next.

Bias Mitigation
Bias is a critical issue in ensuring that GenAI-based solutions address the sensitivities and
ethical challenges associated with many human-based decisions (Köchling & Wehner, 2020).
An example is Amazon’s use of AI in hiring that came to public attention in 2018, when it
was reported that they had to abandon an AI tool because it showed bias against female can-
didates (Dastin, 2018). The tool had been designed to review candidates’ resumes (submitted
to the company over a 10-year period) and rate them, like how shoppers rate products on
Amazon. However, because the tech industry, including Amazon, is male dominated, the AI
learned to favor male candidates. For example, it would penalize resumes that included the
word “women’s,” as in “women’s chess club captain,” and downgrade graduates of all-
women colleges. Amazon’s experience underscores challenges of using GenAI in HR and
highlights the need to continuously monitor and update GenAI systems to ensure they are not
perpetuating biases.
Effective practice and impactful research in this area require understanding that bias in
GenAI occurs for multiple reasons (De-Arteaga, Feuerriegel, & Saar-Tsechansky, 2022;
Feuerriegel, Dolata, & Schwabe, 2020). “Data bias” refers to systematic discrimination that
can be present in historical data used to train GenAI models, which often reflects past
inequalities; if past hiring decisions were biased against certain groups, the GenAI system
might learn to replicate these biases. “Algorithmic bias” reflects AI models that are biased
due to the way they are designed or trained. For example, AI models typically use correla-
tions and can learn spurious patterns. So even if gender is removed from a resume, a model
may still guess it from other features such as hobbies or maternity leave. Similarly, many AI
algorithms are trained to prioritize accuracy for the advantaged group at the cost of error for
the disadvantaged group. As a result, if the training dataset includes fewer women than men,
the AI model is prone to learn correct predictions for the latter, while it has a higher propen-
sity to make errors for the former.
Significant attention has been devoted to addressing bias in AI, and new metrics have
been developed for measuring bias (De-Arteaga et al., 2022). These metrics can help in iden-
tifying situations where risk of bias exists (i.e., “auditing” existing AI systems). In addition,
algorithmic approaches have been developed to mitigate bias once it has occurred. However,
none of these approaches are a silver bullet; rather, addressing GenAI bias in HR use cases
requires a multifaceted approach, combining technical, organizational, and ethical consider-
ations. To this end, and echoing Summit Theme #5, we emphasize the importance of stake-
holder engagement, transparency and explainability, regular auditing, and monitoring
throughout the GenAI in HR value chain. It must become an area of research inquiry among
management and HR scholars, and not confined solely to the data scientists. Researchers
should explore how multiple HR practices can contribute to a more holistic understanding of
bias mitigation (see Table 15).
2708   Journal of Management / July 2025

Table 15
Research Agenda for GenAI Topics That Cut Across HR Areas
POTENTIAL ABUSES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Guiding Principles What determines the content of guiding principles? What is the efficacy of guiding
principles in mitigating the perceived injustice of GenAI?
Fairness It is important to agree on which (algorithmic) fairness notion to use. To reach
agreement, data scientists, HR professionals, and employees need to work together.
Management researchers should study how fairness is reflected in traditional and
GenAI-based HR practices and processes, how employees perceive fairness in the
context of GenAI applications, and how to build successful collaboration among
critical stakeholders.
Transparency Companies seem willing to be transparent about GenAI in HR (e.g., by disclosing
which algorithms have made a career recommendation), but traditional (human-
based) HR practices are often shrouded in secrecy (Brown, Nyberg, Weller, &
Strizver, 2022). Management researchers should examine how disclosure of
GenAI use in HR systems evolves as more and more human-AI intersections are
established.
Organizational Oversight How do companies balance the need for review with the need for rapid innovation to
effectively utilize governing boards for GenAI?
Misuse and Abuses When and how do managers misuse GenAI and what are the consequences?
How can organizations build a culture that encourages responsible use of GenAI?
THE ROLE OF THE CHRO
Strategic What organizational capabilities are necessary to enable the strategic implementation
of GenAI?
How can firms drive value creation from human capital through augmentation
technologies?
What are the key factors that contribute to successful integration of GenAI with
existing HR processes and workflows and what is the role of the CHRO in this
regard?
How can GenAI improve strategic HR capabilities?
Cultural How can CHROs best foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptation to keep
pace with evolving GenAI technologies?
How can CHROs best foster employees’ fairness perception and trust in GenAI?
What are some ways of addressing skepticism and overcoming early resistance to
the strategic implementation of GenAI in the workplace and what is the role of the
CHRO in this regard?
Will there be any differences between cultural contexts that influence the efficacy of
GenAI and the adoption of GenAI?
Moral How can CHROs ensure that work includes a human focus?
What paradoxes emerge from the growing use of GenAI technologies?
What steps are more (or less) effective in ensuring ethical, fair, and responsible use
of Gen AI in decision-making processes and what is the role of the CHRO in this
regard?
BIAS MITIGATION
Human and algorithmic decisions can both be biased. To reduce bias, HR
professionals need to better understand how algorithms work and how bias can be
avoided or reduced. How strong is this understanding? GenAI professionals need
more domain knowledge to develop algorithms that address HR challenges and
needs; what is the best way for them to develop this HR knowledge?
Management researchers should explore how HR practices, such as recruitment,
cross-sectional training, and cross-functional mobility, can contribute to a more
holistic understanding of bias mitigation.

(continued)
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2709

Table 15 (continued)
DECISION RIGHTS
Individual-Level Research Questions
Decision Rights Distribution As GenAI is adopted more widely within organizations, they will have to decide
who is ultimately allowed to control its prompts. Researchers should explore the
consequences of how decision rights are distributed within an organization.
AI Decision-Making Beyond controlling prompts, organizations will need to choose how much decision-
making power is given to AI. Whether GenAI is given clearly defined prompts or
more general ones will influence the number of intermediate decisions it will make
on its own. Researchers can explore how much leeway to allow GenAI in making
decisions.
Organization-Level Research Questions
Organizational Control To what extent will organizations centralize their AI management? A centralized
approach is appealing, as GenAI benefits from wider ranges of data, and
companies may want to retain centralized authority over emerging technology. The
downstream effects and optimal structure of such centralization/decentralization
decisions should be explored.
Start-Ups and Small Start-ups and smaller organizations may use GenAI to find answers about operating
Organizations their businesses, given limited access to established mentors; yet these answers
may be inaccurate or misleading. Whether GenAI will enhance or harm early start-
up and entrepreneurial ventures is a question ripe for study.

Decision Rights
A new and distinctive set of challenges is the area of “decision rights” for GenAI, with the
most important of these in HR being what we refer to as “output verification.” This is critical
because it is hard to know how good GenAI’s responses are. The questions being asked typi-
cally do not have objective answers, and these models can “hallucinate,” generating false
references—some of which may violate labor laws or contracts. GenAI has no internal judg-
ment as to an answer’s credibility. At the Summit, a major U.S. tech company provided an
example of an LLM chatbot they have trained to converse with workers about employment
benefits. The topic is clear and the data are extensive and readily available. However, any
mistaken advice or arrangement can be binding and thus costly, as a legal case brought by Air
Canada’s customer against the company’s chatbot shows (Melnick, 2024). Output verifica-
tion is not particularly challenging when the output is simple (e.g., draft a response letter to
a rejected job candidate), because most employees can check it for reasonableness. However,
such tasks may be the least relevant for GenAI because many such tasks have already been
automated by form letters and chatbots. Beyond simple tasks, employees need specific
knowledge to check the quality of GenAI output.
A second issue related to decision rights is the possibility of a proliferation of conflicting
outputs, or what we call the “adjudication” problem in GenAI: the exact same prompt will
lead to different outputs if given to different LLMs, or to the same LLM at different times.
How do organizations decide which one to follow? Because prompt engineering allows
humans to interject their preferences into the output, managers who do not like a particular
hiring decision could manipulate their own recommendation. A flood of competing reports
can turn leaders into the equivalent of judges having to make sense of competing expert wit-
ness reports. This is why some Summit participants said they avoid using GenAI in situations
where conflicts are likely.
2710   Journal of Management / July 2025

A third issue is that GenAI further elevates the importance of data curation and gover-
nance, tasks that many companies already find overwhelming. Ensuring that only “good”
data is used in GenAI models presents a problem, and establishing governance policies for
this data (i.e., who gets to use which data and for what purposes) raises yet other obstacles.
We call this the “data curation” challenge. The Summit showed that CHROs are very much
concerned about the high stakes involved (including litigation risks, especially around
employment decisions) and therefore likely to insist on human curation of all data fed into
GenAI.
The challenges of verification, adjudication, and data curation raise a fundamental
problem for research and practice around the topic of decision rights: Who should have
the ability to authorize a GenAI application, use it, and act on the output? What structures
and processes would yield output that is true and not just credible sounding, prevent esca-
lation of internal battles, and create benefits that justify the costs of preparing and using
corporate data?
Decision rights are at the heart of the continuum between the decentralization and central-
ization of authority. In the IT field, “IT governance” is defined as the allocation of decision
rights of IT issues in a firm (Lee & Grover, 1999; Sambamurthy & Zmud, 1999), and deci-
sion rights also determine who gets to define the behavior and outcomes desired by IT inves-
tors (Weill & Ross, 2004, p. 8; McElheran, 2014). A general trend in management has been
to decentralize decisions to lower levels, and our sense is that the initial adoption of GenAI
follows this trend: employees are trying it without employers’ consent, with tangible produc-
tivity gains and enhanced decision-making power (Autor, 2024; Dell’Acqua et al., 2023). At
the same time, as noted at the Summit, banks and other companies with sensitive data are
alarmed by this and increasingly block the use of LLMs. GenAI vendors release enterprise
versions of their products that are supposed to protect company data and even align access to
GenAI-generated output with employees’ positions in the formal organizational structure.
Thus, whether LLMs will serve to reverse the general trend toward decentralization appears
to be a fundamental issue.
Table 15 provides an overview of individual- and organization-level research questions in
this area. These include, at the individual level, how widely decision rights ought to be dis-
tributed, and the consequences. A specific question is whether organizations will (or should)
delegate any decision-making power to GenAI. OpenAI’s GPTs can already manipulate files,
search the web, and so forth, but only upon a human’s request. The more general a request,
the more likely that a chatbot will have to enact a sequence of steps to fulfill it, thereby set-
ting up goals for itself. At the organization level, should there be central offices or functions
to manage and control the use of GenAI? Because GenAI can use the same data to answer a
range of questions, consolidating organizational data is a must. So, too, is clarity around
ownership, as illustrated by the recent botched launch of Google’s state-of-the-art Gemini
model, which the company’s insiders blamed on the lack of clear ownership of critical capa-
bilities (Kantrowitz, 2024). If centralized approaches prevail, the implications for power in
the organization are significant.
Numerous unanswered questions exist in this area regarding the optimal use and gover-
nance of GenAI, presenting considerable opportunities and responsibilities for researchers
and leaders. Historically, decisions about IT, even those affecting job structures and deci-
sion rights, were made on the fly by IT consultants and engineers who built the technology.
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2711

As was clear through the Summit themes, it would be a mistake to ignore those who are
experts in the world of work and behavior in these processes this time around. It is impera-
tive that experts in work design, HR, and organizational behavior play a central role in
these decisions to ensure that GenAI applications align with organizational goals and
workforce considerations.

Summary of Future Research Directions

The themes that emerged from the Summit provide fertile ground for theoretical, empir-
ical, and practical contributions. The integration of GenAI into HR practice, as discussed
by practitioners and reflected here, should support the development of insights into the
advancement, adaptation, or creation of theory (Ployhart & Bartunek, 2019). As discussed
throughout this paper, GenAI represents a difference in kind from previous technologies.
While most workplace technologies have represented improvements in efficiency (even
vast improvements!), GenAI introduces quantum leaps to the integration of machines that
can mimic the core cognitive and affective capacities of humans. HR scholars are uniquely
positioned to explore in organizations how humans will be affected by such human-like
technologies. While the preceding sections discussed many specific research needs, here
we briefly consolidate them to suggest opportunities for theoretical contributions to the
field of management.
Our review of the implications of GenAI across HR functional areas shows several direc-
tions with potential for theory building. Broadly, researchers can examine how GenAI
changes the fundamental nature of work (and knowledge work in particular) and human capi-
tal. For instance, if AI takes over lower-level, transactional work, which in turn impacts
learning, how will organizations supplement their training and development in new ways,
and what will the core KSAOs be for employees moving forward (Tables 6 and 8)? Also, how
will technology influence who becomes (and even the meaning of) a “star” in organizations
(Table 12)?
Another rapidly changing research area will be human–AI collaboration in the workplace.
When and where human judgment is critical remains a key question (Table 15), as is how
humans and GenAI can complement one another. Room exists to develop new theory around
the integration and configuration of individuals and AI into interdependent and team-based
work. Research should also build theory around optimal governance structures for GenAI
that still enable the experimentation necessary for innovation (Table 15). Given that GenAI
may allow organizations to better tailor its policies, such as compensation and benefits,
researchers should develop models that explain trade-offs between personalization and gen-
eralization (Table 14).
Scholars should also consider how GenAI will impact strategic HR management and the
role of HR leaders. While the operational efficiencies that can be achieved with GenAI are
frequently discussed and are becoming clearer, GenAI’s role in driving competitive advan-
tage is less clear, and there is an opportunity for theory building here. For example, perhaps
GenAI will enable more precise identification and development of roles that create the most
value (or that capture less value than is created; Tables 4 and 10), or improve better job
matching across the organization, enabling the rapid redeployment of high human capital
individuals to areas of the greatest strategic importance (Table 12).
2712   Journal of Management / July 2025

Discussion
Management scholars have an unprecedented combination of both opportunity and
responsibility to help guide the effective and ethical application of GenAI. Believing that
academics could be simultaneously more relevant and more influential if we better under-
stood the concerns that business leaders are facing in this transformative area, our Summit
facilitated a dialogue among leading HR researchers, HR business leaders, and technology
leaders, fostering a mutual learning environment. This paper has tried to distill, for a
broader audience, the unique insights garnered from this extraordinary Summit. This
includes several themes related to the current practice and the risks and opportunities of
GenAI—important contextual information that we feel is valuable for management schol-
ars—as well as the research implications for several specific areas of HR, which we believe
are fertile ground for future inquiry.
The Summit highlighted that courage is needed by both scholars and practitioners as
they venture into the unknown regarding GenAI’s implications. Its transformative poten-
tial introduces a paradox where business leaders who often expect control must embrace
uncertainty and foster a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and adaptation.
This environment necessitates not only constant change and reskilling but also empower-
ing individuals to innovate and experiment at the grassroots (i.e., individual contributor)
level. In unprecedented ways, curiosity and willingness to learn will be fundamental to
driving careers going forward.
The same will be true for academic researchers who want to contribute to, and who
should help drive, these discussions. It will require curiosity and a willingness to learn. We
have highlighted several promising directions for future research in multiple areas of HR,
grounded in the Summit’s discussions, that we hope spark this curiosity. Yet, meaningfully
contributing to these conversations will also require researchers to move beyond some of
the traditional approaches to research that tend to get published in our top journals. We
provide two examples.
First, going forward, we encourage researchers to embrace use-inspired research. The
National Science Foundation (2020: Q3) defines this as “basic research strongly motivated
by the need to create knowledge or know-how to help develop practical solutions to address
societal challenges.” Use-inspired research is not new (Stokes, 1997), but it is not routinely
embraced in our leading management academic journals (especially given the common
imperative of a “unique theoretical contribution”). However, the importance of implement-
ing GenAI solutions ethically and effectively, along with the critical role management schol-
ars should play here, ought to encourage greater use-inspired research. Indeed, this research
approach is likely necessary to help bridge the research–practice gap and to ensure that aca-
demics’ voices are heard in discussions surrounding GenAI and its implications for manag-
ing people in organizations.
Use-inspired research involves bridging the gap between basic theoretical research and
applied research by maintaining scientific rigor while also addressing real-world challenges.
Successful integration of this research approach in the GenAI domain could foster a symbi-
otic relationship between academia and industry, where practical challenges inform research
agendas, and research findings enhance organizational practices. Such relationships would
then lead organizations to be more open to sharing data with academia, creating a virtuous
cycle of scholarly research and practical contributions. To accomplish this, management
 Nyberg et al. / A Brave New World of Human Resources Research   2713

research on GenAI must align theoretical exploration with practical application, even to the
extent of privileging the latter (as we have done with the research questions identified herein).
Too often, consulting firms adapt management research to claim clever solutions to prob-
lems (e.g., selection, turnover) without considering the theoretical foundations for those
claims (Fulmer et al., 2023). This both undermines management scholars’ standing and
pushes (often) faulty reasoning and solutions to practitioners. With the promised transforma-
tion of GenAI, academics—not consultants—should be the ones driving use-inspired
research. In the area of turnover, for example, academics should be the group that combines
what we know about turnover with theories from organizational behavior to provide profes-
sionals with actionable insights about best leveraging GenAI technologies to manage turn-
over; we have the knowledge to theorize and test effects of different AI-generated
interventions. By identifying potential turnover risks and providing explanations for how and
why these risks originate, we can help organizations proactively address concerns, improve
retention strategies, and better manage workforce planning via GenAI efficiencies, all while
advancing our own turnover research.
Second, another example of the need for both academics and business leaders to be coura-
geous and “think outside the box” concerns an unexpected issue emerging at the Summit as
an outcome of the GenAI revolution: the need to rethink education. The emphasis placed on
the changing nature of tasks for which humans will be responsible, along with the role of
GenAI in augmenting human intelligence, means that we in education need to better develop
students who can function well in a constantly changing and hybrid (machine–human) envi-
ronment (as opposed to simply admonishing them not to use the machine, as done in many
college classrooms). As highlighted by the CHROs at the Summit, the employees of the
(near) future will need to be resilient, curious, and continuous learners with strong critical
thinking skills. They will be trying to solve problems that the educational system cannot yet
predict, doing jobs where the requisite skills are expected to change faster than schools can
keep up. This will necessitate rethinking how we teach our students to maximize their ability
to learn on their own, immediately and long after they have left our classrooms. Much like
we as academics want to meaningfully contribute to the GenAI-HR practice discussions, we
should likewise be proactive in thinking about, working on, and even leading this requisite
educational transformation, rather than waiting to have it foisted upon us by educational and
legislative policymakers.
The GenAI genie is out of the bottle. Regardless of whether all stakeholders support it or
whether the regulatory environment allows it, organizations will search for ways to create an
environment where GenAI can work to their advantage. It could elevate the strategic impact
of HR and enhance the dignity and worth of employees and potential employees, or it could
lead to the commoditization of talent resources where GenAI creates and enacts the cheapest
way to fill jobs. The research we conduct now will help influence which of these two futures
we experience.

Conclusion
Based on a unique Summit bringing together both top HR business leaders and academics,
this scoping review paper discusses the significant impact of GenAI practice on HR, high-
lighting both opportunities and challenges across various HR functions. These underscore
2714   Journal of Management / July 2025

the urgent need for rigorous academic, yet practice-focused, research to address ethical con-
cerns, data management, and the transformative potential of GenAI in reshaping HR prac-
tices. We conclude by expressing our deep appreciation for the CHROs from some of the
world’s largest organizations, who took time out from their many duties to work with aca-
demics (without even the promise of being recognized in this text), and to the academics who
traveled from around the world to learn from and help inform the CHROs. We wish everyone
great success (and great courage) in their endeavors to examine the grand challenges associ-
ated with this revolution.

ORCID iDs
Anthony J. Nyberg [Link]
Deidra J. Schleicher [Link]
Corine Boon [Link]
David G. Collings [Link]
Yoojin Jeong [Link]
Robert E. Ployhart [Link]
Ingo Weller [Link]
Patrick M. Wright [Link]

Notes
1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for sharing these with us.
2. The technology in question was this organization’s proprietary version of a “Digital Twin,” which would
act much more as an autonomous agent, making decisions and/or taking actions (although a human would remain
accountable). Because this technology could free up significant amounts of time by handling more routine pro-
cesses, it is seen as having tremendous potential (and the greatest potential disruption). However, both the CHRO
and their technical leader agreed that ultimately adoption will hinge on user trust and engagement, and that the
effectiveness of this tool must first be demonstrated in order for buy-in to occur. They are currently working on
illustrative videos to demonstrate this and encourage buy-in.

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