Types of AI in People Practice

Covering Assessment Criterion 1.1 of FREE08 – People Professionals and Artificial Intelligence, this video focuses on three specific types of AI that appear most directly in HR and people practice contexts: generative AI, predictive analytics, and natural language processing (NLP). Rather than treating artificial intelligence as a single undifferentiated technology, the video draws a working distinction between these categories and anchors each to recognisable workplace situations, from drafting job descriptions to analysing employee survey responses.

Generative AI is examined with reference to ChatGPT as a concrete example, with the video attending to how such systems produce outputs and what that means for the accuracy and reliability of content they generate. Predictive analytics is addressed in relation to HR applications such as workforce planning and employee retention risk, and the video is explicit that probabilistic outputs — for instance, a likelihood score attached to an individual employee — require careful professional interpretation rather than literal acceptance. NLP is covered as the branch of AI that underlies chatbots handling HR queries, CV screening tools that extract candidate information, and systems that identify themes within survey data.

The video also introduces key terminology associated with these types — including algorithms, data training, prompts, and models — and addresses the limitations that follow from how each type of AI actually functions. The distinction between true AI, which involves learning and pattern recognition, and rule-based automation is present throughout, grounding the three types within the broader definitional territory that AC 1.1 requires people professionals to understand.