Integrating Generative AI into Work: A Case Study of Changes to Core Job Characteristics

Through a case study in a telecommunications operator, we investigate how the integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) changes five5 core characteristics of work (Hackman and Oldham, 1976), namely skills variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. By drawing on 37 interviews with users from 4 job families, we identifying 11 themes across which GAIs affect these core characteristics of work. Notably task identity and autonomy are reinforced. Moreover, we discuss the need to consider how integrating GAIs into work challenges the relationships between these core dimensions of work and the psychological states they are posited to induce, namely experienced meaningfulness of work, experienced responsibility and knowledge of actual results.