How Does AI-Work Interaction Affect Individuals Behavior? The Role of Appraisals

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a trend in capturing valuable insights in organizations that were not achievable previously. Despite the anticipated benefits of implementing AI, the outcomes reveal contradictions. This study elaborates on the role of new AI-work interaction (in terms of augmentation and automation) in such seemingly incongruent results using the transactional theory of stress. Specifically, we propose that depending on individuals’ perceived expertise, they may perceive such a new interaction either as inspirational or impeding. Therefore, if individuals appraise new AI-work interactions as possibly harmful and find that they do not have enough expertise to cope efficiently, they will likely withdraw and resist AI use. However, if they appraise the situation as potentially positive and find themselves highly capable of efficiently dealing with it, they will try to increase the effort to meet environmental demands and not resist the use of AI.