Is AI eroding critical thinking in the workplace?
Geneviève Bich, Vice President – Human Resources (CHRO) at METRO, based in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a board member, framed the stakes for HR broadly: “AI is about enterprise transformation. It’s about future of work. It’s about competencies. It’s about leadership. It’s much more about all of this than about technology.”
The erosion problem HR can’t ignore
Enterprises are not ignoring the skills problem outright: 80% have a reskilling roadmap in place. But a roadmap addresses skill gaps, meaning the new competencies people need to use AI tools. Skill erosion is different: it describes capabilities employees already have quietly fading as AI absorbs more of the thinking work that once built them.
Nearly half of organizations – 46% – do not involve the CHRO when AI strategy is defined, the study found. Employee confidence in AI-enabled decisions rose in 63% of organizations where CHROs shared responsibility for defining which decisions stay human-led, compared with just 19% where they did not.
Statistics Canada’s (StatCan) most recent data shows the share of Canadian businesses reporting AI use in producing goods or delivering services reached 19.2% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 6.1% two years earlier – nearly tripling. Data analytics was the most common application, at 36.6%, while 40.0% of businesses said AI was simply not relevant to their operations.
Why is judgment becoming HR’s job to protect?
Dr. Amit Das, Director and Chief Human Resources Officer at Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. based in India, put the stakes bluntly: “Fluency without judgment simply helps an organization make mistakes faster,” according to The Times of India. He also warned that “the real risk is the quiet erosion of the experiences through which people learn to think.”
