AI does the first pass. Who does the second?

California bars AI from firing workers without human review

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the No Robo Bosses Act, Senate Bill 947, on September 30. Employers may not rely solely on automated decision systems to discipline or fire anyone. Where software is the primary basis, a human reviewer must corroborate the decision with other evidence, such as manager evaluations and personnel files. The worker gets written notice, a description of the data used and a named person to ask. The rules take effect July 1, 2027.

For managers: critics note the law never defines "primarily," so the safe practice anywhere is a named reviewer and a written note of what they checked before any software-led warning goes out.

Source: cnbc.com

AI now grades every lesson at a British training firm

Multiverse, a British apprenticeship company with more than 800 staff, has started running transcripts of its online classes through an AI that scores instructors and alerts managers, the Guardian reported. It flags filler phrases, vague answers and connection problems not fixed within about a minute. Instructors were observed monthly by a manager before; now software watches for several hours a day. Multiverse says only managers write performance reviews.

For managers: instructors say they were pulled up for "digressions" that were answers to a student's question, so treat an AI flag as a reason to look at the work, never as the finding.

Source: theguardian.com

McDonald's puts voice AI and order scales in restaurants

McDonald's will roll out ArchIQ, an AI platform for restaurant operations, with no fixed date. Its drive-thru voice system takes orders in English and Spanish with accuracy above 90%, the company says. Bluetooth tags count inventory automatically, which it says saves about five labor hours a week and cuts food waste by 15%. Scales weigh orders so crew catch and correct 10% before they reach the customer.

For managers: the scale is the part to copy, because an automatic check at the last step catches one order in ten that people had already passed.

Source: restaurantdive.com

AI assistant cuts technician training from twelve months to four

Rockwell Automation's plant in Singapore has 394 pieces of equipment, and new technicians used to need 12 months to become competent. The company had its technicians document what they had learned over the years and loaded that, with every machine manual, into an AI assistant that operators question by text or voice. Time to competency is now four months. Average repair time fell from 18 minutes to 12.

For managers: the assistant is only as good as the know-how your best people put into it, so start capturing what they know before you shop for the software.

Source: industryweek.com

AI note-taker turns two days of casework into three hours

Vale of Glamorgan Council in Wales has given its social workers Notes, an AI tool from Beam. With consent, it records a visit and produces a structured draft of the meeting or assessment, which the social worker reviews, edits and approves. Social worker Jayne Case said an assessment that usually took her about two days reached management in two and a half to three hours. More than 100 local authorities across the United Kingdom now use the tool.

For managers: copy the last step: the software drafts, and the person who was in the room approves it under their own name.

Source: penarthtimes.co.uk

One number

52%

of farmers in the United States see no meaningful benefit from AI or data-driven tools, against 21% in Argentina. The figures come from parallel surveys of 400 American producers in June and 402 Argentine producers in July, run by Purdue University and Austral University. In the United States, 63% said the tools' recommendations would sometimes be difficult to follow. Advice people cannot act on gets judged as no benefit at all.

Try this Monday

Pick one thing software now drafts, flags or scores at your sites: a report, an alert, a rating of someone's work. Find the last time it was wrong and ask who caught it. If the answer is "the customer" or "nobody," name the person who checks it from now on, and where they record that they did.

Worth a look

Shifts still filled by phone. 49% of managers fill open shifts by calling or texting people one by one, in a survey of 846 managers and 1,044 hourly employees by scheduling software company Legion.

Unprepared for the argument. 9% of 665 employers surveyed by law firm Littler feel very prepared for the labor relations issues AI may create.