• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 24, 2023

It is very dubious that AI could help in hiring an email marketing manager, or any other specialist. But AI’s impact on employment is a hot topic, judging by AI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers: What Americans Think, a study by Pew Research Center.  

Of consumers polled, 66% say they would not want to apply for a job at a firm that uses AI to help make hiring decisions.  

Of those polled, 62% think artificial intelligence will have a major impact on jobholders in the next 20 years. But only 28% believe it will affect them personally. 

Yet most consumers polled said they oppose use of AI — and 73% oppose the use of it for making a final hiring decision, while another 41% disdain its use for reviewing job applications. They are also against:

• Tracking workers’ movements while they work — 61%
• Keeping track of when office workers are at their desk — 56%
• Recording exactly what people are doing on their work computers — 51%
• Evaluating how well people are doing their jobs — 39% 
• Analyzing how retail workers interact with customers — 37%
• Monitoring workers’ driving behavior as they make trips for the company — 34% 

As with many things, it depends on age. Of people age 65 and older, only 38% oppose use of AI to track what people are doing on their work computers. But 64% of those in the 18-29 age cohort deplore it. 

There is one big limitation to this study: Pew surveyed 11,004 U.S. adults from December 12-18 2022. That was largely before the ChatGPT debate. Opinions may differ now.  

In addition, workplace monitoring does not really pertain to marketing professionals. The only way to judge what they do is to look at the metrics. In email, those are open, click through rates, click-to-open rates and conversions. It is not yet clear whether AI can help raise any of those numbers.