Roundup: New Agents in Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM Streamline HR Workflows
Plus: Workers use AI even if employers don’t provide it. That’s good and bad.
Oracle’s latest update to Fusion Cloud HCM centers on using embedded, agent-driven AI to automate workflows and enhance talent management for HR, managers and employees.
This week, Oracle launched new agents with an eye toward improving how HR handles core functions directly within their workflows, with complexities or spending additional money. The agents are designed to streamline HR processes including performance management and talent development, along with everyday management transactions.
One agent, the Team Sync Advisor, help users prepare for meetings by submitting weekly progress updates, identifying challenges and generating summaries with targeted follow-up questions for one-on-one check-ins.
Another, the Talent Advisor agent, answers questions about an employee’s readiness for promotions and career moves using real-time data on goals, reviews and recognition. Meanwhile, the Manager Concierge routes questions about compensation, leave or employment details to the right resource.
Oracle says its agentic AI is about more than automating HR transactions. The company wants agents to proactively surface insights, trigger actions and handle routine processes. That way, HR staff can spend more time on – wait for it – strategic challenges.
News & Notes
Employees Embrace AI, but Some Leaders Barely Understand It
Employers are rushing to adopt AI without fully grasping its dangers, employees are using it without oversight, and even security experts are violating their own protocols. All that poses serious risks to business, even before we get to the notion of AI agents taking on some aspects of a management role.
Whatever. AI seems to be making friends among the workforce. A survey by security firm CalypsoAI found that 45% of employees trust AI more than their coworkers, while 38% would rather have an AI manager as opposed to a person.
Meanwhile, 50% of C-suite executives would prefer AI managers over a humans. That despite the fact 34% aren’t sure they can tell the difference between an agent and a human employee. That’s interesting, given that 38% of business leaders admit they don’t even know what an AI agent is.
Most workers (87%) said their employer has an AI policy of some sort, which highlights the growing use of AI in the enterprise. Having a policy doesn’t mean workers will abide by it, however. More than half of U.S. employees (52%) said they’d break policy if AI makes their job easier. A quarter have used AI without checking if it is allowed.
That contrariness is especially evident among entry-level workers, CalypsoAI said. More than a third of entry-level professionals (37%) said they wouldn’t feel guilty for violating AI policy. Some 21% said the rules are unclear, so they just do whatever works. (A third of entry-level workers (33%) say they don’t know what an AI agent is, better than executives’ results.)
Meanwhile, research by SnapLogic found that most employees (including executives) believe they’re more likely to manage AI agents than people in the future. Nearly two-thirds (61%) says agents will be easier to manage than people. Almost half (46%) expect to be managed by an agent at some point down the road.
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Other News
This is kind of about human relations: A new study from Vantage Point Counseling in Dallas found 28% of adult people say they’ve had at least one “intimate or romantic relationship” with AI. Some 54% say they’ve had some kind of relationship – meaning as a friend, colleague or confidant – with an AI system. If you think AI intimacy spawns guilt, you’d be wrong, at least for Boomers. Half of adults over 60 said AI intimacy is not cheating. “Where this goes from here is hard to predict,” said Vantage Point’s owner, Michael Salas. “These numbers could continue to climb as AI becomes more advanced, or they could fall if people start to pull back once they see its limitations.” (I know which way I’m betting.) [Vantage Point]
Soul Machines launched Digital Workforce, which provides lifelike, intelligent digital workers to enterprises. The idea of AI apps being part of the workforce is an increasingly common theme among AI technology vendors. In this case, Soul Machines said the platform offers “a truly nuanced, human-like, face-to-face experience that fundamentally redefines how businesses will deploy and interact with AI.” (See the news item above.) Digital Workforce not only acts like a human, but does so while orchestrating a company’s entire AI stack including LLMs, workflows, agents and security solutions. [Soul Machines/BW]
Amazon plans to lay off up to 15% of its HR staff, which will be followed by headcount reductions in other areas, Fortune reports. The company’s People eXperience Technology team includes more than 10,000 workers around the world, including recruiters and HR technology staff. CEO Andy Jassy has been clear he sees AI as a tool that can be used to streamline work and reduce the workforce. In 2022 and 2023, the company released some 27,000 employees. In June, Sassy said he expected “efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company” would result in cutbacks. [Fortune]
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