Right now, three things are all true at once:
- AI use at work has exploded. Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index shows 75% of knowledge workers already use AI, and most say it helps them save time and focus.
- Most of that use is unmanaged. Only 39% of AI users have received training from their employer, and just 25% of companies plan to offer GenAI training. A separate summary notes 78% of AI users are bringing their own tools to work.
- Employers are already linking AI to job cuts. CIPD’s latest Labour Market Outlook finds around one in six UK employers expect AI to reduce headcount in the next 12 months, with junior and clerical roles most at risk; among large private-sector firms, about a quarter expect reductions.
Meanwhile, HR is not fully in the driver’s seat:
- A People Management analysis of 2024 data found only 15% of HR teams progressed from “evaluating AI” to actually implementing it.
- Gartner is now explicitly warning that without active CHRO leadership, AI in HR can lead to negative outcomes and a diminished HR role.
So the question is not “Will HR matter in an AI world?”
The real question is:
Will HR lead how humans and AI work together or will other functions decide, with HR cleaning up after?
This post is about what happens in that second scenario.
1. AI Adoption Races Ahead While HR Governance Lags
When HR doesn’t step into the AI role, two patterns show up immediately.
Shadow AI becomes the default
From Microsoft’s Work Trend Index and follow-up summaries:
- 75% of knowledge workers are already using AI.
- Only 39% got any formal training from their company.
- Only ~25% of companies plan to offer training this year.
- Around 78% of AI users are bringing their own AI tools to work.
When HR isn’t leading:
- Employees piece together their own AI stacks (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Notion AI, random browser plugins).
- Sensitive data gets pasted into tools the company doesn’t control.
- Teams invent their own norms about what’s “okay.”
Result:
- Security and privacy risk by default.
- Inconsistent quality and fairness in how AI is used.
- No real visibility into where AI is actually touching work.
If HR isn’t co-owning AI literacy and norms, AI becomes a shadow system that leadership only sees in hindsight.
2. Job Cuts Without a People Strategy
CIPD’s Autumn 2025 Labour Market Outlook is a flashing warning light:
- Roughly 17% of UK employers say AI will reduce their workforce in the next year.
- Among large private-sector firms, it’s about 26%.
- Many expect reductions of 10%+ of staff, especially in junior and clerical roles.’
CIPD’s own economists are urging:
- Longer-term workforce planning
- Investment in skills so people can use AI or transition into different roles, not just get displaced
When HR isn’t leading this:
- AI becomes a cost-cutting narrative, not a capability narrative.
- Headcount reductions get announced before there’s a reskilling or redeployment plan.
- Early-career and admin-heavy roles take the hit, with no clear path forward.
Downside risk:
- Trust erosion (“AI = job loss, not opportunity”).
- Brand damage with candidates and employees.
- A harder time getting people to engage with AI in the future, because they’ve already seen what “AI” can mean in practice.
3. HR Becomes a Spectator to AI Decisions
While AI decisions are being made, many HR functions are still on the sidelines:
- People Management’s 2024 study: only 15% of HR teams moved from evaluating AI to actually implementing it in 2024.
At the same time:
- A widely cited 2024 survey (summarized by Josh Bersin) found more than half of employees trust AI more than they trust HR for some work-related questions, an alarming signal about HR’s perceived relevance.
Without HR proactively leading:
- Tech and line leaders pick AI tools that touch hiring, promotion, performance, and scheduling.
- HR is brought in:
- To “help with adoption”
- To handle the employee-relations fallout
- To write policies around decisions that have already been made
Over time:
- HR gets seen as the policy and comms team, not a strategic co-owner of AI and work design.
- Employees learn to go around HR, to managers, to IT, or directly to tools, for guidance.
That’s the “diminished HR role” Gartner is worried about.
4. What It Looks Like on the Ground When HR Isn’t Driving
If you want to know whether you’re already in this danger zone, the symptoms are usually pretty obvious.
You’ll see:
- Uncontrolled tool sprawl
- Different teams using different AI tools with no shared guidance.
- Sensitive content regularly going into unvetted systems.
- AI-linked job anxiety with no real answers
- Workers sense job risk, CIPD and others find ~1 in 6 employers expecting AI-driven reductions, while 85% of workers globally believe AI will affect their jobs.
- When people ask “What does this mean for my role?”, answers are vague or inconsistent.
- Patchy fairness and opaque decisions
- AI-influenced decisions in screening, scheduling, performance, or pay, with:
- No clear human review
- No transparency on how outcomes are generated
- No obvious way to challenge decisions
- AI-influenced decisions in screening, scheduling, performance, or pay, with:
- Change handled as a rollout, not a transformation
- Tool announcements instead of AI @ Work compacts.
- One-off training instead of ongoing capability-building.
- “Use AI, but don’t mess up” as the implicit message.
- HR stuck in reaction mode
- Dealing with grievances, confusion, and morale issues.
- Trying to write policy after tools are already in production.
- Fighting for a seat at the table on initiatives that already launched.
None of this is a tech inevitability. It’s what happens when HR doesn’t claim its AI-era mandate.
5. Gartner’s Warning, Translated: Two Possible Futures
Gartner’s guidance to CHROs is very direct:
CHROs must lead the evolution to an AI-infused HR operating model or risk negative outcomes for employees and a diminished HR role.
Let’s make that concrete.
Future A: HR leads how humans and AI work together
- HR co-creates the AI strategy for people and work, not just HR tech.
- There’s a clear, shared AI @ Work compact about:
- Where AI is used
- How roles change
- How reskilling and “time dividends” work
- AI-related job impacts are paired with:
- Transition plans
- Reskilling paths
- Honest, early communication
- HR co-owns AI governance:
- Fairness checks
- Human-in-the-loop rules
- Channels for employee voice
- HR is seen as:
- A transformation leader, not just the policy team
- The function that makes AI safe, fair, and sustainable for people
Future B: Other functions decide, HR cleans up after
- AI is rolled out by IT/data/line execs with minimal HR input.
- Employees hear about AI mostly through:
- Tool announcements
- Rumors about job cuts
- Vendor marketing
- Job reductions are announced before there’s a plan for redeployment or reskilling.
- HR gets:
- ER nightmares
- Culture hits
- Declining trust sometimes even less trust than employees have in AI itself
- Over time, HR is seen as:
- A bureaucratic function, not a strategic one
- A spectator to AI decisions that shape people’s futures
The tech will keep moving either way. The difference is who shapes the human side.
6. Quick Self-Check: Are You Leading, or Cleaning Up?
For your HR function (or your exec team), run this simple scan:
- AI use vs AI training
- We have a clear AI training and literacy plan (esp. for managers) that matches current use.
- We know employees use AI, but training is ad hoc or non-existent.
- Job impact and transitions
- Where AI may reduce or reshape roles, we have visible plans for reskilling, internal moves, or redesigned roles.
- AI shows up in headcount forecasts before transition plans.
- HR’s seat at the table
- HR/CHRO is involved at the start of AI initiatives that affect people and work design.
- HR hears about AI decisions once tools or restructures are already in motion.
- Governance & fairness
- We have clear standards for where AI can be used, how decisions are reviewed, and how employees can challenge outcomes.
- Governance is mostly technical/legal; HR is asked to “review” late in the process.
- Employee trust
- Employees know how AI is used, why, and what it means for them, and they have channels to raise concerns.
- AI is something employees whisper about or quietly fear; HR is not where they go for clear answers.
If you’re mostly in the second column, you’re in the exact downside scenario the research is warning about.
Where The Scale Crew HR Fits In
This fork in the road HR leads vs HR cleans up is where we work.
At The Scale Crew, we bring together:
- Scale Crew HR
- Fractional HR leadership with deep experience in:
- Org design & workforce planning
- Talent & performance
- Employee relations & culture
- HR Technology
- People Operations
- Total Rewards
- Benefits & Retirement
- Fractional HR leadership with deep experience in:
- AI Readiness & Transformation
- A structured way to:
- Decide if and where AI belongs in your business right now
- Align leaders around a clear AI @ Work compact
- Design manager-first enablement and AI power user pathways
- Build the people, skills, and guardrails that keep HR in a leadership position, not a cleanup role
- A structured way to:
We don’t show up to sit between you and your people.
We show up next to you, especially next to HR, all to:
- Turn shadow AI into a designed capability
- Pair any discussion of AI and efficiency with a real transition plan
- Make sure AI decisions about people have HR’s fingerprints on the design, not just the fallout
If You’re Worried HR Is Watching AI From the Sidelines
We’ll help you see:
- Whether HR is positioned to lead your AI era, or being forced into spectator mode
- Where the biggest risks are (shadow AI, job cuts without pathways, fairness, trust)
- And what would need to change so HR is shaping how humans and AI work together, instead of cleaning up after decisions made somewhere else.
