Inclusion leaders need to evolve as AI takes center stage

Inclusion work has faced an identity crisis in recent years. As companies limit budgets and change focus, HR and inclusion practitioners find themselves getting left out of important decisions about AI deployment.

The Center for Talent Innovation (formerly Coqual) surveyed 173 organizational decision-makers to understand who is responsible for inclusion moving forward, and how they can work with technologists to ensure humans are still centered. It detailed its findings in a new report, “Borrowing from Tomorrow,” released today.

“Went out looking for the future of inclusion, and our research led us to this much, dare I say, juicier, more existential question about how leaders, in their haste to to keep up, to change for this AI-powered era, how they are transforming with humans in mind or not, [and] we found a story about designing with intentionality,” Emily Gawlak, co-executive director of Coqual’s Global Lab, told HR Brew.

There’s no “right way” forward, she said, and with AI in the chat, inclusion practitioners are “fundamentally rethinking their operating models. They are changing workflows, job architecture. They’re, in some cases, going so far as removing entire bands of management.”

Who’s responsible for leading inclusion? DEI outcomes, from recruitment and retention to representation, have historically been the responsibility of HR and inclusion practitioners. But they are just one piece of the puzzle and often lack the authority and reach to achieve those outcomes, the report found.

Most (87%) respondents said that inclusion work is most effective when everyone is accountable for its success. However, 84% of respondents said that most of that responsibility falls to HR or inclusion teams, leaving them walking a fine line between ownership and enablement.

“Dedicated expertise is necessary. That can’t go away, because…quickly it becomes, no one’s owning it,” Gawlak said, adding that employers should empower all employees to think about inclusion in hiring, promotions, and retention. “Human outcomes are being produced across the organization. So it’s not only not fair, but it’s not feasible, for one siloed and increasingly small function or team to try to own or exclusively move those outcomes.”

New pressure from new technology. “We’re in a moment of seismic change in the future of work,” Gawlak said. “Of course, AI is a big component of that.”

Inclusion leaders interviewed by the Center for Talent Innovation expressed concern that a lack of diversity of thought in AI development may make organizations less inclusive and that, in the wrong hands, AI could enable bias. “Without more perspectives we cannot design the future for everybody,” one leader said, according to the report.

Many inclusion leaders said they’d been excluded from discussions about AI implementation, even those with implications for critical inclusion metrics, like representation and opportunity.

“How can inclusion leaders be there as workflows are being redesigned using AI?” Galak said. “They’re focusing less on training and more on thinking about how to actually embed decision making as workflows change.”

Even organizations with inclusion teams may find that, moving forward, inclusion decisions and outcomes may happen outside of traditional DEI strategy, the report predicted. AI transformation may also create new opportunities for inclusion integration across the business, but inclusion executives must be at the table with technologists.

“[Inclusion leaders] need enough fluency to ask better questions and not get steamrolled by technologists,” Gawlak said, adding that these executives need both inclusive leadership skills and AI fluency. “We have to understand it to ask good questions. We have to experiment with it. If nothing else, to be more spirited and educated detractors in those rooms.”