There is a version of the AI conversation that many HR professionals have been having for the past couple of years with their organisations that goes something like this: AI is coming, it will automate jobs, and our role is to manage the human fallout from that. It is a conversation framed almost entirely around risk, protection and damage limitation.

I think that is the wrong conversation. And a recent discussion with Erica Farmer, AI and Future Skills Specialist and author of the new book AI for People Professionals, reinforced why.

The more interesting and urgent question is not what AI will do to the people profession and colleagues. It is what the people profession will do with AI, and whether HR leaders have the headspace and courage to use it as a genuine lever for transformation, starting with themselves.

The Two Hats Problem

Erica made a point early in our conversation that I think cuts right to the heart of the challenge. HR and people professionals wear two hats when it comes to AI. There is the personal hat, covering how you feel about it, how you use it, how it changes your own practice. And there is the organisational hat, covering your responsibility to help the business navigate the people implications of AI at scale.

The problem is that many people professionals are putting on the organisational hat without ever properly trying on the personal one. They are being asked by their stakeholders to produce an AI strategy for the workforce when they have not yet had their own “aha moment” with the technology. And as Erica puts it, until you have that moment, until you genuinely experience what generative AI can do, you simply cannot build a credible strategy around it. You cannot advocate for something you do not understand from the inside.

This matters especially for senior leaders. There is a tendency to assume that executives do not need to use AI themselves; they just need the strategy briefed to them. Erica’s view, and I share it, is that this is precisely backwards. If you have not personally experienced the possibilities, you will not make the right decisions about the future of your organisation’s workforce. You will be making strategic calls about something you have never properly held in your hands.

The Real Opportunity: Freeing HR to Add Value

One of the consistent frustrations I hear from senior HR professionals is that they spend too much of their time on transactional activity: answering queries, fixing process problems, picking up ER issues that line managers have avoided, managing compliance checklists. The higher-order work, including strategic advisory, leadership development, organisational design and genuine cultural influence, is perpetually squeezed by the weight of operational noise.

Erica’s argument is that generative AI should, if used properly, fundamentally disrupt that imbalance. The admin-heavy, process-driven, FAQ-responding end of HR and L&D is exactly the kind of work that can be automated: onboarding bots, AI-assisted compliance training, prompt-driven content creation. Not to replace people, but to free them up for the work that machines genuinely cannot do.

The catch is that this only works if HR professionals are willing to take an honest look at what they currently spend their time on and make some uncomfortable decisions. In Erica’s words, AI is not creating a new problem. It is shining a light on problems that have always existed about how the function defines and demonstrates its value. If the answer to “what do I do that AI cannot?” is mostly process and administration, that is a signal worth paying attention to.

The AI Dividend

One of the ideas from our conversation that I think deserves far wider attention in organisations is what Erica calls the “AI dividend.” Rather than framing AI purely as a productivity tool, a way to do the same work faster so you can be given more work, the AI dividend asks a more human question: what do you get back?

For Erica, who manages a small business alongside a health condition, the dividend is rest and recovery. For her business partner, it is time with family and the flexibility to live a life outside working hours. For me, this is an acceleration of creativity to design solutions for my customers, allowing me to spend more time listening and sharing insights with interesting leaders. These are not abstract benefits. They are specific, personal and motivating.

The reason this matters organisationally is straightforward. When leaders ask people to embrace AI by framing it entirely around efficiency and output, they will get compliance at best and quiet resistance at worst. When they help people identify what they personally stand to gain, what becomes possible in their work and their life, they get genuine engagement. Productivity and efficiency follows, but it follows from a place of people feeling that the technology is working for them rather than simply extracting more from them.

The warning sign, which Erica flagged and I am already starting to hear echoes of, is organisations that use AI to realise a time saving and then immediately fill that saved time with additional workload. That is a fast route to burnout and to eroding exactly the goodwill that early AI adoption requires.

What Should HR Professionals Do Right Now?

The practical message I took from this conversation is to stop waiting for the perfect strategy and start with something real. Not just a policy or a governance framework, but actual hands-on use. Analyse a transcript. Draft a difficult letter. Role-play a conversation. Ask it to challenge your thinking on a business problem. Find out what it can and cannot do by trying it yourself, repeatedly, before you try to lead others through it.

And if you have not done so already, go and find out what is already happening in your organisation without a formal strategy in place. Because Erica is right: the shadow AI is almost certainly already there. People have been filling the void. The question is whether you approach that with curiosity and channel it productively, or discover it later when it has become a governance problem.

The people profession has a genuine opportunity with AI, not just to automate its own processes, but to reframe its role, demonstrate strategic value and become the function that helps the entire organisation navigate the most significant shift in how work is done that most of us will see in our careers. That is a significant prize. But it starts with honesty about where we currently are, and the willingness to go first.

This blog is based on our latest Tap’d Talks HR podcast with Erica Farmer, AI and Future Skills Specialist.

Erica’s book, AI for People Professionals, is available now here: https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/ai-for-people-professionals-9781398625990.

You can listen to the full episode here: https://tapdsolutions.com/podcast-why-ai-is-a-huge-opportunity-for-hr/.