AI and HR: What to Automate vs. What to keep Human

By: Tushiya Hill, Intern July 2026 #AI

Tushiya is a high school intern working closely with Dr. C and the SHRI team over the summer as she prepares to enter her senior year of school in the fall of 2026.

Artificial Intelligence has been around for a while; plenty of business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, and anyone who has a phone has heard of AI, and more than 30% of the U.S population (‘The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI' by Harvard.edu) have used AI at least once. With generative AI becoming publicly accessible, the problems it has caused so far, the lack of regulation, ethical data governance, and the fact that AI hasn’t truly lived up to expectations, there should be some boundaries. So if limiting the use of AI feels like a vast space between “missed opportunities” and “more opportunities”, I hope the following could serve as a guideline for us.

An AI-generated photo of an HR professional using AI

What To Automate (Efficiency & Data):

• Productive Workforce Planning: Using machine learning to forecast talent shortages and future hiring based on marketing trends will drastically help increase business presence- but it needs to be reviewed by a person to prevent it from looking like constant spam or an idea that’s not cohesive.

• Skill Gap Analysis: Deploying AI platforms to scan employee profiles and automatically map out required training modules will save time. Although that doesn't mean an AI can or should work entirely by itself regarding hiring’s.

• Onboarding & Compliance: Offloading initial document verification, policy training, and FAQ management to virtual assistants will save about 3 days to a week of work. With that in mind, AI has faced hurdles in this area, so supervision, or at least a way to review the history of what was erased and what was kept, would be beneficial.

• Sourcing & Initial Screening: Using algorithms to match resume skills with job descriptions and eliminate manual volume sorting will be a lifesaver.

• Researching Companies: It’s hard to find information on a company from the site and Google alone. It's even more time-consuming to do it the old “right way” by consulting various articles and asking around. AI makes it easier to manage as a whole. Of course, you still have to look at sources, verify information, and see for yourself, but it’ll save brainpower.

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What To Keep Human (Strategy & Culture):

• Ethical AI Governance: Designing the corporate policies, bias audits, and guardrails for how the company uses candidate data.

• High-Stakes Talent Decisions: Retaining final human judgment on executive hiring, promotions, and workforce restructuring.

• Empathetic Offboarding: Managing employee exits, downsizing, and career transitions with dignity and human compassion.

• Culture & Belonging: Fostering psychological safety, driving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and resolving complex team conflicts.

• Ideas: Don’t start the business with a tool. Not only will it feel heartless and unpassionate, but you may also question yourself more and feel less motivated than someone who had a random idea once, or even someone who used AI to shape a feeling or an idea.

AI can write polite text, but it cannot read the room or feel the tension in a meeting.

Do you use AI to draft your correspondence?

• Yes
• No

Algorithms look for keywords, whereas humans look for intent and relationships. An AI chatbot can say “I understand your frustration,” but employees know it's just a script, which can make them feel dismissed. Also, AI still hallucinates when it's unsure of an answer to something. I learned in my English Honors course that Ethos means credibility and believability. Without a middleman, the AI could easily escalate situations or make the wrong call on something drastic without the right limitations. AI lacks Ethos; this is where humanity balances the AI's "intelligence" with critical thinking skills.

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Just like social media algorithms mistakenly ban accounts and videos, HR AI could flag harmless employee behavior as a “threat” due to a lack of context. Additionally, automated software may lock an employee out of their system during a critical deadline simply because they logged in from a different location.

AI operates on binary rules (yes/no), so it cannot make exceptions for unique personal emergencies or medical situations, and it may be biased. Which is why layoffs and onboarding must stay human. Automated termination letters create massive public relations (PR) nightmares and invite wrongful termination lawsuits. Losing a job is a life-altering event that requires eye contact, active listening, and space for human grief. That leaves them with dignity as they leave. The employees who stay behind watch how exits are handled; automated layoffs immediately destroy company culture, psychological safety, and may damage how humane the company actually looks and feels to them.

SHRI understands that HR leaders can use AI-driven sentiment analysis data to proactively address burnout before employees quit. However, establishing workflows in which AI suggests actions while human HR professionals make the final decision will enable the business to thrive in the long term. Dr. C said, “While AI can exist, the heart of the application must remain authentically yours”.(‘Unlocking Your Job Search Potential with AI’) To find that balance, it’s best to think about “What will AI solve?” and funnel it’s control more specifically while always keeping a human in the loop.