Tech

Lattice CEO explains ‘big misunderstanding’ over AI rollout

As businesses deploy AI, CEO Sarah Franklin is confident that “this is HR’s moment.”
article cover

Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

4 min read

Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin sees AI as “transformational technology” in business—that’s why she posted to Linkedin last month that the company was proud to be the first to develop a system for onboarding, training, goal setting, and managing performance for these “digital workers,” and creating employee records for them.

On LinkedIn and elsewhere, the criticism was swift, with many users questioning if Lattice was equating AI tools to human employees. After the announcement, Lattice hit pause on deployment because, as Franklin told HR Brew, “We need to have this conversation.”

“The intent was to hold AI accountable, and to be transparent with where AI is in the organization, and to have a human directly in charge and accountable for that AI,” Franklin said. “The big misunderstanding was that AI is human, and that is absolutely…the exact opposite intent of the innovation…This was a simple thing, anticipating a need to—at the beginning of AI entering the workforce—help put in some governance and guidelines.”

Franklin took the helm at the company as its new CEO in January, and told HR Brew in March that she was interested in designing AI tools that have “very clear business outcomes, and they’re relatively simple to put into practice.”

What was missing from the July announcement and the subsequent public understanding of the feature, Franklin said, was that in creating a new employee record type specifically for AI tools, Lattice would actually create some distinction between human employees and the AI used at work. The intent was not to liken bots to humans, but rather house these tools in an org chart (coded and colored differently than human employees), to make goals public and clearly define who is responsible for oversight.

If that all sounds very HR to you, that was Franklin’s thinking too.

HR’s moment to shine. While the feedback to the “digital workers” feature made it clear to Franklin that education was needed before HR and the wider business community would be ready to onboard, train, and manage the performance of AI tools this way, she’s steadfast that the HR function is the correct home for AI oversight.

Quick-to-read HR news & insights

From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

“I deeply believe that this is HR’s moment. This is the moment for HR to be strategic, to be helpful, and to really position themselves as the leader into the future,” she said.

To Franklin, managing the deployment and oversight of AI “is actually more simple than we think.” HR leaders “already have processes for bringing unknown entities into your company” (new hires), educating and training them, and then “putting agreements in place that they will hold your company information confidential.” The function also oversees the processes designed to manage how work gets done (goal-setting and performance management), and “when it’s time to leave, they will safely leave that information within your company and not defame you.”

Instead of “reinventing a wheel,” the feature aimed to bring AI into the business through similar processes. “The person that I want in charge [of] taking all companies…through this transformation with AI is somebody that cares about people first, and that is the anchor tenant,” she said.

Since AI impacts every human resource in the company, oversight should belong to the HR function.

What’s next? Lattice is focused on collecting and processing feedback from customers, business execs, and HR leaders, Franklin said.

“We’re never gonna have all the answers, but we can listen more, and there was some very fair feedback that I welcome,” she said. “I do not think that AI is human, but I do want to put governance around AI as it enters our workforce, so we can responsibly have AI and succeed as people.”

And if HR leaders fear being technically equipped, educated, and savvy enough to shepard in this new era of AI at work, then more education is needed.

“HR, this is the moment to calm. This is a moment to educate. This is the moment to plan,” she said, “By us having clear eyes in what we are looking at here…to put governance in place, to go into unchartered territories. HR can do this.”

Quick-to-read HR news & insights

From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.