Digital Employee
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A Digital Employee is a AI-driven avatar that performs specific tasks typically done by employees.
- Context:
- It can (often) by based on a Digital Employee Platform.
- It can take on roles like Einstein the Service Agent in Salesforce or Piper the Sales Agent in Qualified, performing continuous and automated work.
- It can (often) be integrated into HR systems to receive employee records, onboarding, and performance metrics, as attempted by Lattice.
- ...
- Example(s):
- an AI-Powered Sales Agent that works around the clock to convert inbound website traffic into pipeline, like Piper from Qualified.
- an AI-Driven Software Engineer capable of planning and executing complex engineering tasks, like Devin from Cognition.ai.
- an AI Customer Service Agent that helps predict revenues and liaise with prospects, like Einstein from Salesforce.
- ...
- Counter-Example(s):
- Human Employees, who require health insurance, paid time off, and retirement plans.
- AI Tools that do not function autonomously as employees but provide support, such as chatbots and virtual assistants.
- See: AI Agent, HR Automation, Performance Management, Machine Learning Models, Autonomous AI Agent Platform
References
2024
- (Marks, 2024) ⇒ Gene Marks. (2024). "The world is not quite ready for ‘digital workers’.” In: The Guardian.
- QUOTE: “Digital employees are avatars who have ‘entered the workforce and become our colleagues.’ But these are not real. They’re bots powered by AI.”
- NOTE: It discusses the challenges and backlash faced by Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice, after announcing the integration of digital employees into the company's HR platform.
- NOTE: It highlights the specific capabilities of digital employees like Salesforce’s Einstein in assisting sales and marketing professionals with various tasks.
- NOTE: It details Lattice’s initial plan to onboard digital employees as regular employees within their HR platform, including assigning goals and performance metrics.
- NOTE: It describes the strong public backlash and negative reactions on social media that led to the suspension of Lattice’s plans to integrate digital employees.