What online retail can teach HR about AI's real value

Hello H.A.I.R. Community,

We are constantly told that Generative AI will make our teams more efficient. That it will save time, automate tasks, and cut costs. While that's partly true, a groundbreaking new study from researchers at Columbia University and Zhejiang University suggests we might be focusing on the wrong metric

AI's Real Superpower Isn't Efficiency. It's Levelling the Playing Field.

The study, "Generative AI and Firm Productivity", conducted large-scale experiments on a global e-commerce platform and found that the true power of GenAI isn't just about making things faster. It’s about creating more value and, most importantly, levelling the performance gap across the workforce.

For HR and Talent leaders, the findings offer a critical roadmap for thinking about AI adoption, moving beyond simple automation to genuine strategic transformation. Here are the key lessons.

1. Reframe the Business Case: From Cost-Saving to Value-Creation

The study's primary finding was that GenAI boosted sales not by cutting costs but by improving the consumer experience, leading to higher conversion rates. In workflows like the pre-sale chatbot, where the existing baseline was poor (an automated "no service" message), the GenAI-powered version increased sales by a staggering 16.3%.

The HR Takeaway: Stop building the business case for AI around "hours saved" for your recruiters or HR managers. That's a race to the bottom. Instead, frame it around value created.

• For Recruitment: How can GenAI improve the candidate experience? Can it provide instant, 24/7 answers to applicant questions, reducing candidate drop-off? Can it help hiring managers write better interview feedback, leading to fairer evaluations?

• For HR: How can GenAI enhance the employee experience? Can a GenAI-powered internal helpdesk provide better, faster answers on policies, reducing frustration and improving satisfaction?

This shifts the conversation from a cost centre justification to a strategic investment in your people and brand.

2. Identify the "Great Leveller" Effect in Your Teams

Perhaps the most compelling finding was the clear evidence of heterogeneity: GenAI delivered disproportionately larger gains for smaller sellers and less experienced consumers. It acted as a capability-enhancer, bridging the gap between novices and experts. The technology didn't just help the best get better; it helped the rest get much better, fast.

The HR Takeaway: GenAI is a powerful performance leveller. It can dramatically shorten the learning curve for junior members of your team.

• A junior recruiter using a GenAI assistant can craft outreach messages or job descriptions with the nuance and effectiveness of a senior professional.

• A newly promoted manager can be guided by a GenAI tool to prepare for a difficult performance conversation with the confidence of a seasoned leader.

• A junior HR generalist can query an internal AI agent on a complex employee relations issue and receive guidance that reflects deep institutional knowledge.

This has profound implications for onboarding, training and talent mobility. Your L&D strategy must now include developing skills in prompting, critical evaluation and using AI as a co-pilot, potentially reducing the need for traditional, knowledge-based training.

3. Be Strategic: Don't Apply AI Everywhere

The study showed that results varied wildly across different applications. While customer service saw huge gains, an experiment to optimise Google Advertising titles with a generic GenAI model actually had a negative (though insignificant) effect. The reason? The model wasn't fine-tuned for the specific domain of advertising and omitted important commercial keywords.

The HR Takeaway: This is a crucial lesson in AI governance and vendor selection. Don't chase shiny objects.

• Conduct a Gap Analysis: Where is the biggest friction in your organisation? Where is your "baseline" weakest? As the study showed, the biggest gains came from replacing a system of "no service". Focus your AI efforts on solving your biggest, most painful problems first.

• Scrutinise Vendors: A generic AI model wrapped in a pretty user interface is not enough. When evaluating an HR or recruitment AI tool, ask vendors the hard questions: Is your model fine-tuned on relevant, high-quality HR data? Does it understand the legal and ethical nuances of our industry? A tool that doesn't understand the context of HR is not just ineffective; it's a compliance risk.

This research provides a powerful, data-driven argument that the strategic implementation of GenAI in the workplace is not about replacing humans or simply making them faster. It's about augmenting them to create more value, improve stakeholder experience and, most importantly, raise the capability of the entire organisation.

Are you an HR or TA leader based in the Nordics? Have we got the webinar for you!

The pressure to adopt AI in HR is immense, but how do you separate real innovation from high-risk hype?

​Many Nordic organisations are buying tools without asking the right questions, mistakenly thinking compliance is solely the vendor's problem. With the EU AI Act on the horizon, this approach is no longer defensible.

​Join Alexandra M. Davis and I for this pragmatic webinar that cuts through the noise to give HR and TA leaders a playbook for safe AI adoption.

Make sure to secure your spot today

Here's how H.A.I.R. can help you put the AI in HR:

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4. Measure Your Team's AI Readiness with genAssess: stop guessing and start measuring your team's practical AI application skills. Discover genAssess.

Thank you for being part of H.A.I.R. I hope this deep dive helps you navigate the complexities of AI in HR with greater confidence and control.

Until next time,

Martyn

H.A.I.R. (AI in HR)

Putting the AI in HR. Safely.