This HR Firm Tried to Treat AI Bots Like Humans—and It Didn’t Go Well

“Today, Lattice is making AI history,” said CEO Sarah Franklin he wrote in a July 9 blog post. “We will be the first to provide digital workers with official employee data in Lattice. Digital workers will be safely onboarded, trained, and given goals, performance metrics, appropriate access to systems, and even a manager. Just like any other person.”

On July 12, after the predictable backlash, Lattice released an update stating that it would “no longer employ digital workers in its product.”

Here is an example response to the original Lattice ad:

Franklin’s original post acknowledged that there are questions about what it means to integrate an AI employee into the management of real people. Franklin took to LinkedIn to explain what Lattice thinks about the feature. “I’m not advocating for AI personification,” Franklin said. he said in one.

Many companies are exploring the idea of ​​digital workers—Franklin’s blog post cited software engineer Devin from Cognition AI and a Piper AI sales representative from Qualified. Lattice appears to have tried to respond to these types of AI bots, but its attempt didn’t work, especially among the people who might be most interested.

Lattice did not respond to a request for comment.