Human Roles in an AI-Driven Workplace: Evidence from Logistics Operations and Corporate Functions

Abstract

This paper will discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting the human role in the workplace and will also compare the logistics and corporate industries. With the growing use of AI technologies in organisations, it has become important to understand the impact of these systems on employee performance, trust, cognitive load, and job security. The study seeks to examine the impact of the nature of work on the uptake and the experience of AI in various organisational settings. A mixed-method research design was used; it is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The primary data gathering was done using a structured questionnaire of 100 employees (50 in logistics and 50 in corporate sectors) and 25 semi-structured interviews. The mean comparison and hypothesis testing were used to analyse the quantitative data. In contrast, the qualitative data were analysed through the thematic analysis to reveal more in-depth details about the experiences of the employees. The results indicate that there is a big variation between the two industries. The perspective on AI in logistics is that it is a supportive and efficiency-enhancing device that results in increased performance expectancy and trust, reduced cognitive load, and less concern with job security. Conversely, corporate workers have increased cognitive load, reduced trust in AI systems, additional AI rework, and more job security concerns because of the necessity to constantly verify and make decisions. The paper concludes that the effect of AI is not universal and considerably depends on the type of work. More apt in structured, rule-based settings, AI is currently challenged in the application of complex, cognitive tasks in terms of trust, workload, and human-AI engagement. The study offers a set of practical recommendations to organisations that should be able to take a human-centred and situation-specific approach to the implementation of AI, which guarantees not only the efficiency of technologies but also the well-being of the employees.