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Quickfire question: Who, in a business, should be responsible for AI? Most of us would assume the tech side of an organization should hold the bag: the CTO, CIO, CDO, CMO or perhaps even a new chief AI officer. And while this direction certainly made sense in the early wave of AI adoptionwhen it was still a mere toolthe rise of agentic AI (read: autonomous, intelligent agents that behave less like gadgets and more like colleagues) forces us to rethink our assumptions. Which means we should be asking whether AI should be treated as a technology or as a member of the team. And if its the latter, is HR actually the role best positioned to oversee it? WHY HR IS RE-EMERGING AS A STRATEGIC AI PLAYER While some might think that AI will diminish the influence of chief people officers, human-centered agentic design is bringing HR back to the center of business transformation. After all, autonomous AI could transform the very definition of an HR role: managing workflows, employee experiences, and workplace culture. One challenge blocking effective AI management is often rooted in organizations outdated design models. Traditional enterprise structures, especially in the Fortune 500, lag years behind the market and best practice. For instance, until recently CFOs were often leading AI decisions, largely optimizing for cost savings only. But just because a machine can do something doesnt mean it should. Research by Gather found that 95% of AI pilots fail to deliver meaningful business impact because theyre overly based on algorithms. Meanwhile, employees spend $13 billion annually on their own subscriptions as enterprise tools dont meet their needs. Human-centered design is the missing ingredient for AI success at scale; companies that design for human needs achieve faster ROI, lower risk, and sustainable competitive advantage. Fortunately, I can see a more progressive mindset emerging. Its no longer How do we do the same with fewer people? but How do we help the same people do more with AI? And instead of What roles can AI replace? its What roles can only humans perform? These reframed attitudes make the people function central to AI transformation. If AI is treated as an employee-like resource that affects experience, workflow, and culture, HR becomes its logical home. REINVENT HR: INTRODUCING THE CHIEF RESOURCE OFFICER But if AI really is joining the workforce, HR must evolve beyond managing just human resources. In the agentic era, the function becomes responsible for orchestrating all faculties: human and digital. Enter the chief resource officer (CRO). This is a new role that would reflect AIs real place in a company, responsible for integrating AI into workforce planning, ensuring ethical and effective use, and promoting a culture that encourages augmentation over replacement. Mic drop, I know. Now hear me out. Weve seen similar transformations before. The chief revenue officer didnt exist until CFO priorities shifted, and suddenly organizations needed a new leader to capitalize on growth opportunities. AI represents a similar inflection point, one that expands HRs mandate rather than diminishes it. THE REAL CHALLENGE? UPSKILLING THE C-SUITE The biggest barrier to this shift will be leadership readiness. Many existing HR managers are not yet AI experts, and theyre often stereotyped as preferring traditional processes and workflows. But as companies adopt agentic systems, CROs will become core stakeholders. Theyll need fluency in data governance, workflow management, and experience design. Any AI work integrations must be human-centered and, from an agentic perspective, negate the chances of garbage in/out. As a result, CRO training and upskilling, whether performed in-house or with the help of an external partner, become more important than ever. The risks of unwittingly fostering an AI knowledge gap are real. At Gather, we partnered with a major global financial services company whose lifecycle management systems werent communicating properly with its AI capabilitiesresulting in churn, operational escalations, increased risk, and inconsistent messaging to card members. But the problems were organizational, rather than technological. Gather interviewed five core user groups to map the complete automation lifecycle (intake to execution), identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and consistency. Then, we created assets to showcase automation use cases and build stakeholder awareness, introducing structured data models for better reporting, governance, and reuse. So far, the changes have proved a huge successpowering significant progress for the businesss automation adoption goals. DESIGN A HUMAN-CENTERED AI FUTURE Thriving in the agentic era starts with asking another quickfire question: What work must remain human? Creativity, empathy, judgment, and relationship-building remain irreplaceable, and these are the areas that determine long-term business success. So, a new CRO must: Bring HR into AI strategy early Upskill executives together, not in silos Treat AI as a collaborator rather than a cost-reduction tool Design systems where both humans and agents can thrive Far from diminishing HRs role, AI will expand it. As agentic systems take on more responsibility, HR and the chief resource officer will become some of the most important stewards of the modern workforce. Ultimately, AI wont replace peoplebut it will replace organizations that fail to redesign around them. Justin Tobin is founder and CEO of Gather.
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E-Commerce
If drivers want to switch away from a completely gas-powered car to something electric, they have a few options. Namely: battery electric vehicles, hybrids, or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). All are seen as a way to reduce transportation emissions and move away from gas-guzzling internal combustion cars. But it turns out, plug-in hybrid owners may not actually be plugging in their vehicles, making PHEVs not quite the environmental solution that they seem like. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, speaking this week at the Automotive Press Association conference in Detroit, touched on this reality when talking about GMs plans with electric and hybrid vehicles. What we also know today with plug-in hybrids is that most people don’t plug them in,” Barra said. “So that’s why we’re trying to be very thoughtful about what we do from a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid perspective.” Hybrids as a solution to EV sales growth EVs are seen as a crucial climate solution. In the U.S., transportation accounts for the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and switching to electric vehicles cut those emissions and reduce air pollution. The recent growth in EV sales meant that transportation emissions stayed relatively flat in 2025, despite an increase in road traffic (and an increase in electricity emissions at large). But the rate of that sales growth has been slowing, and is expected to slow even more in 2026, in part because the Trump administration ended federal subsidies that helped people purchase EVs. With the end of those tax credits, plus tariffs and bad consumer sentiment tainting EV sales, automakers have looked to hybrids as a way to still get customers into more efficient cars. GM is one of those automakers: In 2024, the company said it planned to bring plug-in hybrid options to North America in 2027. At the conference this week, Barra said that while GM is enthusiastically investing in EVs because we think thats the end game, the automaker is still “continuing to evaluate” hybrid and plug-in hybrids. Plug-in hybrids don’t need to be plugged in If drivers arent plugging in their plug-in hybrids, though, then that vehicle option isnt as helpful for the climate as it seems. There are two main types of hybrids: HEVs, or hybrid electric vehicles, which use regenerative braking to recharge the battery, and PHEVs, or plug-in hybrids, which can be plugged in just like an EV to charge. (PHEVs do also allow regenerative braking to charge the battery, just by a smaller amount.) But plug-in hybrids dont need to be plugged in to work. Plugging those vehicles into an EV charger will make them more efficient, and can allow drivers to avoid using their gas engine at all. But they can still be driven without a charge, just by relying on gas. This could make plug-in hybrids even less fuel efficient than a gas-only car, according to Consumer Reports. For example, once the BMW 330e xDrive sedans 20-mile electric range is exhausted, it only gets 25 mpg3 mpg less than the conventional 330i xDrives EPA rating of 28 mpg, per the outlet. Thats likely because a plug-in hybrids battery increases the vehicles overall weight, making them less fuel efficient. (Thanks to their batteries, electric vehicles are heavier than gas-powered cars.) The climate reality of plug-in hybrids So, are plug-in hybrids climate benefits actually overblown? Research says yes. An October 2025 report from Transport & Environment, a European advocacy group for clean transportation, found that plug-in hybrids are a diversion on the road to zero emissions. The real-world carbon dioxide emissions of plug-in hybrids, the report found, are nearly five times the official emissions estimates. European Commission driving data released in 2024 came to a slightly different conclusion, but shows the same trend: Plug-in hybrids produce about 3.5 times the official emissions determined in lab tests for regulatory purposes, that report found. Basically, regulatory assessments to determine emissions assume 84% of PHEV drivers drive their vehicles primarily with the battery. In reality, its more than 27%. Data on U.S. plug-in hybrid drivers shows the same issue. A 2022 report by the International Council of Clean Transportation found that for plug-in hybrids in the U.S., real-world electric drive share may be 26%56% lower and real-world fuel consumption may be 42%67% higher than assumed within EPAs labeling program for light duty vehicles.” How efficient, and helpful to the environment, plug-in hybrids really are, then, depends on their drivers. Thats why environmental expertsand even Barra herselfsay that EVs are still ultimately the endgame for the auto industry.
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E-Commerce
Social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said. We stared down everybody who said it couldnt be done, some of the most powerful and rich companies in the world and their supporters, communications minister Anika Wells told reporters on Friday. Now Australian parents can be confident that their kids can have their childhoods back. The figures, reported to Australias government by 10 social media platforms, were the first to show the scale of the landmark ban since it was enacted in December over fears about the effects of harmful online environments on young people. The law provoked fraught debates in Australia about technology use, privacy, child safety and mental health and has prompted other countries to consider similar measures. Officials said the figure was encouraging Under Australian law, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Twitch face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33.2 million) if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts of Australian children younger than 16. Messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are exempt. To verify age, platforms can either request copies of identification documents, use a third party to apply age estimation technology to an account holders face, or make inferences from data already available, such as how long an account has been held. About 2.5 million Australians are aged between 8 and 15, said the countrys eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, and past estimates suggested 84% of 8- to 12-year-olds held social media accounts. It was not known how many accounts were held across the 10 platforms but Inman Grant said the figure of 4.7 million deactivated or restricted was encouraging. Were preventing predatory social media companies from accessing our children, Inman Grant said. The 10 biggest companies covered by the ban were compliant with it and had reported removal figures to Australia’s regulator on time, the commissioner said. She added that social media companies were expected to shift their efforts from enforcing the ban to preventing children from creating new accounts or otherwise circumventing the prohibition. Meta removed 550,000 accounts Australian officials didnt break the figures down by platform. But Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, said this week that by the day after the ban came into effect it had removed nearly 550,000 accounts belonging to users understood to be under 16. In the blog post divulging the figures, Meta criticized the ban and said smaller platforms where the ban doesn’t apply might not prioritize safety. The company also noted browsing platforms would still present content to children based on algorithms a concern that led to the ban’s enactment. The law was widely popular among parents and child safety campaigners. Online privacy advocates and some groups representing teenagers opposed it, with the latter citing the support found in online spaces by vulnerable young people or those geographically isolated in Australias sprawling rural areas. Some said they had managed to fool age assessing technologies or were helped by parents or older siblings to circumvent the ban. Other countries might follow Since Australia began debating the measures in 2024, other countries have considered following suit. Denmarks government is among them, saying in November that it had planned to implement a social media ban for children under 15. The fact that in spite of some skepticism out there, its working and being replicated now around the world, is something that is a source of Australian pride, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday. Opposition lawmakers have suggested that young people have circumvented the ban easily or are migrating to other apps that are less scrutinized than the largest platforms. Inman Grant said Friday that data seen by her office showed a spike in downloads of alternative apps when the ban was enacted but not a spike in usage. There is no real long-term trends yet that we can say but were engaging, she said. Meanwhile, she said, the regulator she heads planned to introduce world-leading AI companion and chatbot restrictions in March. She didnt disclose further details. Charlotte Graham-McLay, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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