Allow me to introduce my colleague AI

Digital technologies are fundamentally changing everyday working life, whether through automated dispatching in logistics, algorithmically controlled staff scheduling in care facilities, or AI-based performance monitoring in customer service. Increasingly, systems are taking over tasks that were previously the exclusive responsibility of human management. These developments offer great potential, but also new risks for safety, health, and equal opportunities in the world of work.

Algorithmic management, meaning the use of digital systems to steer, monitor, or evaluate work processes, is already used today in more than one quarter of companies in the EU, with a continued upward trend.1 Used correctly, this technology can facilitate routine tasks, reduce physical strain, and make work processes more efficient. For example, digital assistance systems support warehouse workers in moving heavy loads in a way that protects their backs, or they enable delivery services to plan routes in an optimised way to save time and resources.

At the same time, new risk situations are emerging. Some of the best known include job losses due to automation, growing technological dependence, surveillance, stress caused by constant availability, and a sense of alienation from human interaction. How the use of algorithmic management systems in the workplace should function is currently being discussed by Member of the European Parliament Andrzej Buła (European People’s Party, Poland) in his own-initiative report.2 His goal is to establish clear standards for transparency, participation, and health protection across all sectors. Whether he will succeed in persuading the European Commission to extend existing rules for platform workers to other areas of employment remains to be seen.

But the AI-driven transformation does not only affect the private sector. Social insurance systems are also undergoing a profound transformation. Making administrative processes more efficient, improving communication with insured persons, and relieving employees of routine tasks are central topics that should be addressed with the help of AI. There are already numerous practical examples of AI use in European social insurance systems.3 For instance, the German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the building trade (BG BAU) uses AI-supported prediction models to identify companies with increased need for support at an early stage and thus direct the deployment of supervisory and inspection staff in a targeted manner.

This creates a double dynamic. Social insurance is both an actor and a party affected by digital transformation. It must not only observe and help shape the consequences of algorithmic management and AI use in companies, but also make its own structures fit for the future. This requires practical legal frameworks, clear standards for data protection and cybersecurity, and systematic development of expertise within the organisations.