- AI-driven avatars could keep employees working (metaphorically speaking) after they quit, retire, or otherwise move on, according to Gartner
- Middle management jobs face an AI shakeup as companies streamline with tech
- Employers will turn to digital detoxes and AI morale boosters to combat workplace burnout
Get ready for your employers to demand the right to create your AI avatar, putting you to work after you’ve quit, retired, been fired or died.
In sports, so-called “image and likeness” contracts are routine — teams pay players to use their names, images and likenesses in advertising, games and other places, noted Daryl Plummer, Gartner distinguished VP analyst, chief of research and fellow, speaking at the recent Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo conference.
This practice will become more widespread with AI as companies look to tap deeper into employees’ knowledge, Plummer said.
“It’s about knowledge retention,” he said. “If a company can use AI to capture your knowledge — to suck it up and put it in a container they can use — why shouldn’t they?” he said.
By 2027, 70% of new contracts for employees will include licensing and fair use clauses for AI representations of employee personas, Gartner predicted.
AI representation was one of ten predictions Gartner made at the conference. Other predictions included an AI-driven middle management massacre, using AI to manipulate employee morale and employers attempting to control their employees’ digital addictions.
This was the second batch of ten predictions Gartner made at that event; Gartner labeled the first batch as “trends” and they included direct brain-to-machine interfaces becoming widespread by 2030, increased adoption of “spatial computing” technology such as augmented reality and virtual reality, and the emergence of general-purpose robots (which Gartner called “polyfunctional”).
AI is affecting everything, Plummer said, citing examples from the law, baseball, sewage treatment, baseball, dating and therapy. “It’s like a giant whirlwind spinning everything around and we are going to be carried along with this. We have to figure out how we’re going to land.”
Today’s workers need to plan for the eventuality that their employers might clone them with AI, Plummer said.
“Every one of us may be subject to the idea that our company wants to turn us into an AI avatar,” he said. “What happens when they do that? What if they make the avatar say something that you wouldn’t be caught dead saying?”
The AI avatar might work on projects while you’re working elsewhere or after you’ve left the company. “Do you get paid twice?” Plummer said. “I’m assuming no is the answer — but you might negotiate better than I do,” he said.
Middle-management massacre
The AI revolution will be bad news for many middle managers, Gartner predicts. Some 20% of organizations “will use AI to flatten their organizational structure, eliminating more than half of current middle management positions” by 2026, the analysts said.
Organizations that deploy AI to eliminate middle management “human workers” will benefit from reduced costs, Gartner said. AI will enhance productivity and control by automating and scheduling tasks and providing reporting and performance monitoring for the remaining workforce, which allows remaining managers to focus on more strategic activities.
But AI middle management will also present challenges, as the wider workforce grows concerned over job security, managers feel overwhelmed with additional direct reports, and the mentoring and learning process becomes overwhelmed. Junior workers will suffer from a lack of development opportunities, Gartner said.
Does that mean millions of middle managers will be joining the unemployment line? Maybe not. In a survey earlier this year, Fierce asked leaders at network operators whether AI and automation would take jobs. Some two-thirds of respondents said AI will transform existing jobs but not reduce them or even increase job numbers. The question was part of an overall survey on the state of telecom automation and AI.
Middle managers should not worry about AI taking their jobs — they should, instead, focus on how they’ll train for the change, ensuring they are “more valuable as people while AI comes in and takes over the jobs that are less valuable,” Plummer said.
AI will change upper management, too. Some 10% of global boards “will use AI to challenge executive decisions that are material to their business” by 2028. “This will end the era of maverick CEOs whose decisions cannot be fully defended,” Gartner said.
Here’s a new catchphrase for the AI era: Second-guessing-as-a-service.
Who watches the watchers?
At the conference, Gartner analysts discussed the emergence of “agentic AI” — AI that can take actions. But this presents security vulnerabilities. The “threat surface” from attacks becomes vastly bigger, Plummer said.
By 2028, 25% of enterprise breaches will be traced back to AI agent abuse from both external and malicious internal actors, Plummer said. And 40% of CIOs will demand “guardian agents” be made available to autonomously track, oversee and contain the results of AI data.
These guardian agents are required to oversee AI because humans can’t keep up with the work of supervising proliferating, faster-moving AI. Guardian agents are already emerging — for example, an Italian company uses AI for translation and a guardian AI to ensure the translation aligns with the company brand, policy and prior statements, Plummer said.
“Don’t depend on humans in the loop for too long,” Plummer said. “They just won’t be able to keep up.”
Digital addiction, morale-building and more
About one billion people will be affected by digital addiction by 2028, leading to a “disjointed workforce,” decreasing productivity and increasing stress and mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, with lost social skills, especially among more susceptible younger generations, Gartner said.
Organizations will need to make “digital detox periods” mandatory for employees, “banning after-hours communication and bringing back compulsory analog tools and techniques like screen-free meetings, email-free Fridays and off-desk lunch breaks,” Gartner said.
Some “40% of large enterprises will deploy AI to manipulate and measure employee mood and behaviors, all in the name of profit,” by 2028. (This AI prediction is already mood-altering — it’s depressing.)
But automated morale-building may backfire.
“Employees may feel their autonomy and privacy are compromised, leading to dissatisfaction and eroded trust,” Gartner said. The potential benefits of AI-driven behavioral technologies are substantial, but “companies must balance efficiency gains with genuine care for employee wellbeing to avoid long-term damage to morale and loyalty.”