Generative AI at Work - Opportunity, Risk & Regulation for HR Professionals

Introduction

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Claude have quickly gone from novelty to infrastructure. They are now built into office software, recruitment platforms and HR systems. They are also used every day by employees, whether or not their employer has approved it.

This virtual classroom seminar gives HR professionals a practical, plain-English guide to three things: what these tools are, how they are changing work and where the legal and reputational risks lie.

The timing matters. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has rewritten the UK rules on automated decision-making and those changes have been in force since February 2026. The ICO has set out pointed expectations for AI in recruitment and it found that many employers are making automated decisions without realising it. The EU AI Act’s rules for high-risk employment AI have been pushed back to December 2027, but they have not been dropped. UK employers with EU operations, candidates or vendors should prepare.

The session turns all of this into a clear picture of what HR teams should be doing now.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive course will cover the following:

• From novelty to infrastructure: how generative AI is changing work
• What large language models are, how they work in outline and what they cannot reliably do
• Where HR and the wider business are using them: recruitment, drafting, policy and knowledge work, performance management and productivity
• ‘Shadow AI’: staff using public tools with or without permission and why banning them rarely works
• The regulatory landscape
• The UK’s principles-based approach. There is no UK ‘AI Act’, so existing data protection, equality and employment law has to stretch to cover these tools
• The Data (Use and Access) Act’s new automated decision-making regime: what employers can now do and which safeguards still apply (information, the right to make representations, human review and the right to contest)
• The ICO’s expectations on AI in recruitment and more widely, including its 2026 recruitment findings and draft guidance on automated decision-making: transparency, DPIAs and ongoing monitoring for fairness and accuracy
• The EU AI Act: why employment AI is classed as ‘high-risk’, the new December 2027 timetable and when it affects UK employers
• Where employers need to be careful
• Putting personal, special category or confidential information into public tools
• Bias and discrimination in AI-assisted recruitment and decisions and how equality duties and reasonable adjustments apply
• Accuracy, ‘hallucination’ and the danger of over-reliance
• Transparency to staff and candidates, and the line between productivity tools and surveillance
• Confidentiality, intellectual property and vendor due diligence
• ‘Decision support’ versus decision-making: what meaningful human involvement really requires, and why simply having a person in the chain is not enough
• Practical outcomes
• What a workable AI use policy looks like, and how to make it stick
• Who should own AI risk: HR, legal, IT, the DPO, or a combination
• The key questions to ask vendors before you adopt a tool

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.