The Center on Workplace AI’s inaugural webinar in our AI case study series featured Katy George, Corporate Vice President, Workforce Transformation at Microsoft and Donna Morris, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Walmart, in a discussion focused on the realities of leading a global workforce in the midst of AI adoption. Their dialogue used Microsoft’s Employee Self-Service agent case study as a paradigm to discuss a critical shift: moving from managing jobs to managing skills.
Beyond efficiency, AI can reshape roles – for the better: Microsoft conducted more than 100 AI case studies to learn what drives real impact. One of the clearest examples was an HR self-service agent designed to handle up to 80% of employee inquiries and which provided faster, more personalized responses. This empowered HR teams to take a more dynamic approach to deploying coaching, and growing talent – where the ROI is a “quality change” in the type of work done, as Ms. George noted, and not just cost reduction and efficiency. This has substantial work and workforce benefits.
This also reflects a broader shift in roles. Rather than eliminating jobs, AI is changing what those jobs require. Work is moving away from execution toward oversight, judgment, and integration. Employees still need deep functional expertise, but they are increasingly expected to connect across functions and guide AI outputs—what George described as more “T-shaped” roles.
“Going slow to go fast” - immersive AI adoption: Microsoft’s teams go through immersive, multi-week “bootcamps,” stepping away from day-to-day work to experiment with AI tools together and apply them directly to real projects. A key principle is “leave your discipline at the door” allowing teams to slow down temporarily to reinforce an AI mindset and change how work is done using AI tools.
Leading from the top: At Walmart, Ms. Morris emphasized a complementary approach. Role redesign is happening at the level of specific job types, supported by function-specific tools and agents. She emphasized that change has been accelerated by having leaders actively demonstrate how they use AI in their own work. That visibility has helped reduce hesitation and normalize adoption across the organization.
HR’s leading role in AI transformation: AI transformation requires the integration of technology, workflow redesign, and people strategy. HR is expected not only to support change, but to help define how work is restructured—where humans add value, how roles should evolve, and how to build new capabilities. One challenge raised during the webinar is that job structures and incentives are often slower to change than the work itself, which can limit progress.
AI should enable early-career talent: While AI can automate entry-level tasks, both speakers emphasized the importance of redesigning—not reducing—these roles. With the right structure and support, early career employees can contribute more quickly, while benefiting from two-way mentorship (with AI natives mentoring established employees on AI and experienced employees helping AI natives develop judgment and understand business context).
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Across both organizations, the constraint is not access to AI tools. It is how quickly companies can adapt roles, workflows, and expectations—and how deliberately they manage the people side of that transition.
You can watch a recording of the webinar here!
Our full case studies series is available here
Microsoft Case Study here
