Op-Ed | September 15, 2025
The Danger of Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being rapidly adopted in the workplace due to its promise of improving operational efficiency and encouragement of “innovation”. Many organizations are adopting AI with the intention of changing how people work together while reducing the time it takes to do things by providing a wide range of internal and external knowledge. Armed with this information, executives tend to paint this rosy picture of what AI can do for their organizations.
Yet, behind this rosy vision, AI implementation introduces some dangers into the workplace. Like it or not, your workforce will either respond to the news of an AI implementation with nervousness (What is AI? How do we use it? Where do we use it?) or anxiety (Will AI replace me? What else does AI know about me? Is AI capturing all my conversations?). Listening to and addressing these concerns (“thorns”) can make or break your digital transformation effort.
To help you get started, I will address some common AI dangers or “thorns” that you will likely face in your AI implementation and provide some potential mitigation items that you can use to address these concerns.
The Dangers of AI (“Thorns”)
- Will AI replace me?
We will start with the most obvious and popular concerns that are on top of everyone’s mind: Will AI replace me? The truth is that the combination of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI will eventually render entry-level jobs obsolete. These jobs often involve repetitive, tedious, or predictable actions. As a result, most executives would seek to eliminate it with RPA or AI to try and save money or reduce “human errors”. Everything from manufacturing, logistics, and data entry roles is trending toward being displaced within the next year. - AI was created to serve humans
Without a doubt, AI will be able to process and find information faster than you can blink. This itself will speed up our ability to make decisions faster and more accurately. But the reality is, AI will be created and trained to perform tasks based on a human problem statement. As a result, the AI logic within itself can carry the same view/opinion as its creators. As the saying goes, you can paint a million pictures with data. Depending on what the artist is intending to paint, you can always make data work the way you want to. So, when leveraging AI to help you with decision-making, you must keep in mind that there is still a human factor that must be considered with all the information being provided by AI, otherwise biased views will only be amplified. - Gray line of privacy
Again, one of the biggest advantages of AI technology is the ability to process and analyze a large amount of data 24/7. This is a very popular feature because all organizations will tell us they have amassed a large amount of data (on multiple databases). The ability to combine, correlate, and harmonize data from business operation systems, service delivery systems, HR systems, etc., has enabled the data organization to build dashboards to report and forecast everything from sales trends, ROI on marketing, and even cybersecurity. These dashboards provide organizations with the ability to make business decisions and keep them secure, but they also inadvertently provide more data relationships about employees and customers that may encroach on individual privacy. When transactions and interactions are being collected and tracked (via a CyberSecurity Tool like MS Purview), it can help track users’ productivity, monitor behaviors, or predict behavior. Some of these tools will even correlate this information to build a user profile on each employee and customer, which can lead to data being misused to do personal surveillance. - Workforce becoming numbers
As AI systems take on more day-to-day tasks, there’s a risk that the typical workplace will become robotic and interaction will become nothing but prompts and demands. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) initiatives can reduce the sense of urgency and purpose for the employees and will create a sense of dull and repetitive tasks with no critical thinking involved. This can lead to dissatisfaction in the workplace and cause the employees to be disconnected from the organization’s culture, which can ultimately cause unmotivated workers and high turnover rates. - Security and threats
The worst thing or “thorn” of AI is security. Having AI-driven systems may increase automation, but it also introduces increased cyber threats. Vulnerabilities don’t only come from external exploitation but also have a big internal exploitation, as AI can be misused unintentionally or leveraged by internal users for malicious reasons. While external bad actors are increasingly using AI to craft highly convincing phishing attacks (we are talking about highly convincing ones and not the prince of Northwest Africa-type) and infecting more computers on a larger scale than ever before.
Mitigating the Dangers of AI
The danger of automation can be mitigated with a strategic approach. Here are some of the things that your organization can do to help with the adoption of AI without turning it into Skynet:
- Reskilling and education: Help provide the appropriate training and direction to help workers adapt to new roles and challenges
- Responsible AI development: Building a change board for AI to define, implement, and enforce transparency rules can reduce misalignment
- Data privacy protections: Implement data governance policies to ensure employee privacy is protected and minimize the risk of data breaches.
- Employees focus workplaces: Continue to focus on the “Human Factors” at an organization while encouraging and valuing creativity and collaboration.
- Clearly defined standards: Provide a clear and concise guide for how to use AI and education on the consequences of violations.
Conclusion
Like it or not, AI is here to stay. The benefits of AI will be realized by organizations for many years to come. As with any technological advancement, some dangers come with it. By anticipating risks, promoting transparency, collaboration, and setting clear boundaries, your organization can find a healthy balance between the power of AI and engaging employees who truly embrace AI. Recognizing these challenges (“thorns”) early on and planning on reducing them during your AI road mapping will help ensure your organization doesn’t turn into Skynet while still unlocking the power of AI.
About the Author
My name is Huy H. Nguyễn, and I am a managing partner at Bayen Group. We specialize in partnering with organizations to plan and implement the Technology Enterprise Modernization Roadmap. If your organization is starting or in the process of its own Digital Transformation, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to be your guide through the Digital Transformation journey.
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