Is Our Future Colleague Even Human? Advancing Human–AI Teamwork from an Organizational Perspective

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of collaborative work that was once carried out exclusively by humans. In this special issue, we ask whether our future colleagues will even be human and what this means for today's organizations. The eight contributions examine how design choices such as human‐likeness and gendered cues shape perceptions of AI, how AI alters team processes including decision‐making, trust, and stress, and how training and organizational integration condition sustainable human–AI collaboration. Together, the contributions suggest that AI reshapes collective work processes, not only individual judgments. Building on this insight and on sociotechnical systems thinking, we develop a framework that distinguishes where AI is positioned in the social system of work and how much agency it exercises. The framework also raises the normative question of how AI's position in organizations should be governed. Together, the contributions and the framework point toward a research agenda that differentiates between human–AI configurations and treats teams rather than dyads as the unit of analysis.