AI and the Changing Nature of Work

How professionals adapt when artificial intelligence changes their work: the A-PEM series and related projects.
Research
AI and Work
Published

October 1, 2026

Keywords

artificial intelligence, professional adaptation, A-PEM model, fsQCA, future of work

The question

How do professionals adapt when artificial intelligence changes what their work is? With collaborators, I approach the question through an Awareness–Perception–Envisioning–Management (A-PEM) process model, and ask under which conditions adaptation happens.

What we have done

My earlier writing on this topic was for practitioners. A 2018 article separated the AI of popular imagination from the narrow, task-specific AI actually entering workplaces, and noted that systems trained on past human judgments can reproduce human bias. A 2020 article with two co-authors reviewed why HR functions turn to AI, how it is used in selection, promotion, evaluation, placement, and turnover prediction, and what to watch for. A 2023 article discussed generative AI in HR work.

In the current series, focus-group interviews with professionals have been coded and analyzed with qualitative coding, network analysis, structural topic modeling, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

What is in progress

  • C1, conceptual paper proposing the A-PEM model: manuscript under revision for journal submission (project page).
  • C2, qualitative study applying the model to focus-group interviews: analysis complete; manuscript under revision (project page).
  • C3, fsQCA study of necessary and sufficient conditions for adaptation: analysis complete; manuscript under revision (project page).
  • Related projects: a bibliometric and topic-modeling review of employee resistance to enterprise AI systems, a study of how business schools integrate AI and critical thinking, and a review asking who the learning subject is when AI enters organizational learning.

Statuses are kept on the Current Research Projects page.

Selected publications

No peer-reviewed article from the series has been published yet. Earlier invited articles on the topic:

  • 김성준, 이중학, 채충일 (2020). 인사(HR) 분야의 인공지능 활용. KISDI AI Outlook, 2020년 가을 (Vol. 3), 31–49.
  • 채충일 (2023, 4월). 성공적인 AI·HR을 위한 가이드: 챗GPT, 영리하게 활용하기. 월간HRD.
  • 채충일 (2018, 8월). 인공지능에 대한 우리의 인식과 일터의 변화. EDUTECH Monthly, Vol. 2 (인공지능 시대의 도래와 교육·학습의 혁신). HUNET.