Artificial intelligence as a colleague: towards the workplace coexistence of people and artificial intelligence

In this chapter, we introduce the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) emerging not only as a new technology but also as a new type of organizational actor. When seen as a colleague, AI needs to be understood and managed in a different way to earlier technologies such as cars and personal computers. The key difference here is that while people use cars and personal computers for various purposes, AI and people engage together in shared or consecutive tasks. Consequently, the boundary between people and AI blurs. We suggest that both scholars and practitioners consider this coexistence of people and AI a new organizational phenomenon and topic of study. Due to an inherent complexity in the study of human/AI coexistence, we advocate an extension of the paradox theory to include not only different types of AI solutions, such as those for automation or augmentation, but also different people in different roles who work with these solutions. In line with this perspective, we explore common patterns in human/AI coexistence, as well as how this coexistence impacts different occupational roles in organizational settings.