Digital twins are coming. Is HR ready?

The decisions that can’t wait

For most organizations, widespread deployment of employee digital twins is still a couple of years away. But the foundational decisions that’ll shape how the technology plays out, on governance, consent, compensation, and data rights, need to be made well before products arrive at scale and well before employment tribunals are left to set the precedent.

Lowmaster offers three priorities. First, get clear on governance: what can a digital twin do autonomously, what requires human sign-off, and what’s it never permitted to do? Second, start working through what employee data rights mean in this context and how compensation structures might need to evolve. Third, and perhaps most immediately, be transparent with employees about what these systems are actually for.

“No one’s going to engage with the digital twin if they think it’s meant to replace them,” she said. “Your people are still your people,” Lowmaster added. “These technologies are still the technologies they are using. They’re meant to build on, expand, scale the expertise of your people, not replace them.”

Skellett thinks HR functions that haven’t started thinking about this are already behind.

“AI doesn’t change what HR does,” he said. “AI is changing the system in which HR operates.”