AI is Reshaping our Jobs, but Who is Determining the Future of Work?

You have probably wondered how AI will impact your job. As companies have aggressively tried to integrate AI systems into their workflows, many workers have been left to grapple with the implications of this monumental shift. AI is now being reported as the driver for hundreds of thousands of layoffs while also transforming the tech industry.

In response to this dramatic shift, unions and worker advocacy organizations have begun to prioritize AI-related protections. The AFL-CIO, a federation of 63 unions representing roughly 15 million workers, recently published a report insisting that AI should “make work better and safer,” while the German actors’ union BFFS negotiated a landmark agreement to protect actors from job loss due to generative AI.

However, more needs to be done to ensure all workers are protected. Cross-sector collaboration efforts, including company and worker voices, should be the key factor in determining the future of work.

“Research consistently shows that when employees feel heard, they are more engaged, more loyal, and more willing to contribute ideas that move companies forward.”

According to a recent McKinsey report, most organizations remain in the early stages of AI adoption, with nearly two-thirds not yet scaling it enterprise-wide. Some organizations have taken on ambitious AI agendas with hopes of redesigning workflows and unlocking new levels of growth and innovation. But how these implementation and adoption strategies affect workers, and who will have the ultimate say in how these tools shape the future of work, is not yet clear.

Company leadership often bases workplace AI deployment decisions solely on tool capabilities. Even though workers are the ones most affected by these changes and the ones the economy ultimately relies on, they are often left out of the conversation when it comes to developing implementation and adoption strategies.

According to Wharton’s 2025 AI Adoption Report, employees’ interest and buy-in with using AI tools determines the ability for AI to generate productivity gains for enterprises. Workers and employers must jointly shape AI usage in the workplace to ensure both parties benefit from its adoption.

And if AI is ever going to be the transformative tool we hope it will be, companies need to start thinking about how to adopt and implement it in ways that build trust and not resentment.

At Partnership on AI, we have worked to ensure that AI’s effects on the labor market and the future of work contribute to broadly shared prosperity. For example, in collaboration with a multistakeholder Steering Committee, we developed Guidelines for AI and Shared Prosperity to equip interested stakeholders with the frameworks and practices they need to steer AI that benefits all people in society.

In continuation of this work, and with support from the Ford Foundation, we partnered with Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) and Provoc to launch a two-year initiative to integrate employee voices when implementing AI in the workplace.

From Principles to Implementation

Building on our Guidelines for AI and Shared Prosperity and Provoc’s Listen, Act, Be Accountable framework, we worked with senior corporate responsibility and sustainability leaders to participate in learning sessions, provide feedback, and integrate changes to their companies.

“By engaging employees early and often, companies can foster a culture of accountable innovation and transparency—cornerstones for building trust, accelerating adoption, and delivering meaningful outcomes through AI.”

Through these sessions, similar themes emerged:

• Deep concern about job security and efficiency expectations.
• Generational divides in comfort with using the technology.
• Anxiety about changing job requirements.
• Pockets of excitement among workers who think the technology could help to make their jobs more meaningful by allowing them to offload more menial tasks.
• Hope that AI could help free them up for more strategic thinking.

Next Steps

This initiative was an important first step in demonstrating how collaborative efforts between workers and employers can, and should, co-determine how AI is developed, implemented, and adopted. Our work in this area will continue next year, through the development of case studies: a series of interviews with for-profit and public sector employers that have either 1) participants from the above study who conducted listening sessions with their employees about the use of AI in the workplace or 2) signed contracts with unions regarding the use of AI. We will also interview unions that have successfully negotiated provisions related to the use of AI in the workplace.

This project will demonstrate how businesses can benefit from including workers in AI-usage decisions. For unions and worker advocacy groups, this work will distill and share best practices in enabling workers to influence when and how AI systems are used. For policymakers, this work will illustrate the concrete benefits of integrating worker voice and expertise and identify factors that could help enable successful and productive worker input.

Stay tuned for updates in this space as we will publish a set of case studies alongside a paper synthesizing key findings next spring. In the meantime, if you are interested in getting more involved with this work, please reach out to eliza@partnershiponai.org!