The vital role trust will play in the AI-powered future of work

When it comes to the future of work, people often focus on a specific tech or a focused problem that will change and move with time. I find that it's more helpful to look at the paradigm shifts - often to do with trust, power, beliefs, and values - that will fundamentally reshape our working lives.

These shifts lie not in the shiny tech, but in the underlying structures and systems that shape boundaries, norms, and dynamics between work and life, and between employers and employees. What I’ve seen in my research is just how much these shifts can impact equality, health, and well-being.

Let’s Rethink that! 

Historically there have been three significant “trust shifts” in work—local, institutional, and distributed. We’re currently in the early stages of entering the fourth: autosapient trust.

To understand the disruption happening, it’s helpful to think of trust like energy: It doesn’t get destroyed; it changes form. 

• Local trust flowed SIDEWAYS, directly from person to person. 
• Institutional trust flowed UPWARDS to leaders, experts, referees, and regulators.
• Distributed trust changed the flow back SIDEWAYS but in ways and on a scale never possible before. 
• Now, with the rapid advancement of AI, autosapient trust will flow THROUGH an AI agent.

Putting it into practice

During this explosive phase of understanding AI’s possibilities, there are four critical trust points organizations should be focusing on to ensure this trust leads to a more equitable future. 

1. Invest in training people at every level 
2. Boost people’s “creative confidence” with AI. 
3. Reimagine what dimensions of the organizations should be driven and enhanced by AI and what should become more human. 
4. Rethink how teams come together, physically and virtually.

Please read my recent article in Fast Company with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where I explain these points in more depth.

How are you or your organization thinking about navigating the AI trust shift? Please leave thoughts and practical suggestions in the comments below.

Warmly,