Speaker: Miriam Herding

Abstract: With generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) assistants becoming increasingly embedded in platform-based ecosystems like Microsoft 365, researchers and practitioners alike praise their augmenting potential for human creativity and productivity. However, little is known about how individuals configure these systems into their work to leverage these promises. In contrast to traditional IT or discriminative AI systems that operate within predefined technological and managerial constraints, the openness of GenAI assistants demands a high degree of individual engagement to actively determine how, for what purposes, and to what extent to integrate them in individual work activities. As part of a longitudinal case study, we have conducted 55 semi-structured interviews with 11 IT service professionals examining how individuals experiment with and adapt to Microsoft’s GenAI assistant Copilot for M365. Through the lens of human-machine configurations and configuration work, we investigate how individuals navigate this openness and configure human-GenAI collaboration to achieve augmentation.

Short Bio: Miriam Herding is a research assistant and PhD student at the Junior Professorship for Digital Transformation and Society at the University of Münster. Her research examines the changing nature of work and organizing through the integration of AI systems in knowledge work settings. Drawing on in-depth qualitative case study research, she explores how configurations of human-AI collaboration emerge and evolve within organizational settings, along with the broader intended and unintended consequences of automation and augmentation.