Grant for research on GenAI's impact on professionals’ work and organizations

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26 July 2024

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a grant to Prof. dr. Marleen Huysman and her AI@Work research group from the KIN Center for Digital Innovation. The GenAI@Work project will explore the transformations that GenAI brings to the work of professionals and organizations, as well as the consequences for organizational social structures.

With the rapid advancement of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Harvey, and Co-pilot, new ways of generating knowledge have entered work, organizations and society. This has sparked diverse reactions: some fear that technology might replace jobs, while others anticipate increased productivity and new avenues for creativity and innovation. While GenAI's radical capabilities might indeed justify such hopes and anxieties, the GenAI@Work project will focus on its more profound, indirect, and longer-term implications at the workplace.

GenAI@Work is a follow-up to the AIKnow open competition project, in which the AI@Work group studied how to develop AI in such a way that the work of professionals is augmented.

GenAI@Work consists of three research projects. One PhD project will explore how GenAI tools change knowledge creation, sharing, and validation and how these changes impact social structures within the workplace. Another PhD project will study how GenAI tools transform knowledge integration within and beyond organizations, and their effects on organizational structures and policies. The third project is a collaborative effort involving researchers from the AI@Work research group - Marleen Huysman, Reza Mousavi Baygi, Ella Hafermalz, Anne-Sophie Mayer and Wendy Günther. These researchers will explore eight organizations that are already using GenAI across various industries. Based on their findings, the team will develop practical guidelines for the responsible development, use, and management of GenAI at work.