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Employees are already using AI tools, but the path to justifying AI’s real value requires more than just tools. HRO’s Tracy Chan talks to two seasoned Hong Kong HR leaders about what it takes to turn AI adoption into meaningful business and people outcomes.
A typical day at work begins. You arrive at your desk to find your AI assistant greeting you with a prioritised list of tasks, summaries of overnight updates, and dozens of email responses drafted on your behalf. What once sounded like science fiction is increasingly becoming part of everyday working life.
Yet a critical question remains: is AI genuinely helping us work more effectively or is it simply adding another layer of work through multiple rounds of reviews, corrections, and rework?
Today, the debate around AI has fundamentally shifted. The question is no longer whether employees should use AI – they already do; nor is it whether AI will replace humans – most would agree it will not.
Instead, the challenge facing HR leaders is how AI should be used to empower employees so they can realise the full value of the technology and drive positive organisational outcomes.
Recent global research by Workday suggested many organisations in Hong Kong are still falling short. While employees are saving meaningful time with AI tools, much of that benefit is being lost to rework – fixing mistakes, rewriting content, and double-checking outputs from generic tools.
More alarmingly, only 38% of employees doing the most rework said they are getting access to skills training, while 88% of organisations in Hong Kong reported that fewer than half of their roles had been updated to reflect AI capabilities. These findings point to a clear disconnect between AI adoption and workforce readiness, leaving many employees inadequately supported to use AI effectively.
To understand why some organisations are translating AI investment into business value while others are struggling, HRO's Tracy Chan spoke to two seasoned Hong Kong HR leaders who have been actively embedding AI into their organisations.
Why AI adoption alone is not enough
“Most companies go wrong by focusing on just buying and learning AI tools and platforms as an IT roll-out, while expecting immediate financial and productivity returns overnight,” says Kris Lui, a mission-driven and business-oriented global HR leader.
Most business leaders, she says, understand that AI is a must-have instead of a nice-to-have to accelerate growth, and most organisations see AI as an enabler for all functions and people instead of just one function or an elite group of people in the company. However, few have looked at the overall organisational and talent structures to help maximise the value.
“Few companies spend quality time to redesign the organisation holistically – from the business strategy to the implied work and structure, process and systems, people capability, rewards, and culture,” she says.
“This gap is where the value leaks. It echoes the Workday study which showed that nearly 40% of the time AI saves is lost to rework because people run 2026 tools inside 2015 jobs.”
Sarah Cheuk, Head of People at Fano, echoes those views and shares that one of the most common pitfalls she has observed is the temptation to push AI implementation too aggressively in the pursuit of immediate ROI.
“While the enthusiasm is understandable, sustainable AI adoption requires more than just deploying the right tools. It demands equal attention to your people’s skills, readiness, and buy-in across the organisation,” she emphasises.
Another frequent misstep companies usually make, Cheuk cautions, is assuming AI can replace everything. She notes “the reality is more nuanced”.
“A successful AI integration requires a careful balance between technology, people, and time. Organisations that take the time to identify where AI genuinely adds value, and where human judgement remains irreplaceable, are the ones that unlock its true potential.”
She reiterates it is less about racing to automate, but more about thoughtfully augmenting how people work.
AI works best when people make the decisions
While Cheuk works for a locally based AI company, and Lui is a big fan of AI, both HR leaders have been trailblazers in embedding AI into their daily workflow.
One of the earliest and most impactful experiments at Fano was integrating an AI-powered meeting note-taker into the performance appraisal and interview processes.
“What surprised me most was just how transformative the experience was,” recalls Cheuk, sharing the internal team’s time was freed up from the burden of manual note-taking, allowing HR and the interviewers to be fully present in real conversations.
“Our HR colleagues and interviewers can engage more meaningfully with candidates and employees, and focus on what truly matters – the human dialogue. The depth and quality of our discussions noticeably improved.”
On the other hand, Lui has been using AI since 2019 when she served as the Asia Pacific Human Resources Vice President at Vertiv, a global company offering critical digital infrastructure.
The purpose of using AI, she says, is to give employees more quality time to add value to their work and families – a key factor in attracting and retaining capable talent.
“The first workflow that we ran was to use a robot called ‘Alice’ to call and attract thousands of candidates to our recruitment events so as to hire a very high target of fresh graduates in China,” Lui remembers.
Being able to talk to people naturally like humans, robot Alice successfully invited candidates to the event, while saving 4,000 man hours from the talent acquisition team who then pivoted to do more high value business partnerships with business leaders and universities.
“What surprised me was the humanoid technology and that it could be trained easily at a low cost. It really added high value to our employee engagement and growth,” Lui says.
Reflecting on their early adoption of AI, both leaders concur human decision-making is what brought out the true value of the technology.
“Like any AI solution, the technology is not 100% perfect, and there are moments where outputs need to be validated,” Cheuk says.
“We have addressed this by establishing a clear review process where colleagues verify content whenever questions arise, treating AI as a powerful assistant rather than a replacement for human judgement.”
Lui adds: “No matter how well trained the AI was, a human in the loop was still needed at a certain stage to ensure the desired outcome was delivered consistently. It was great that my team was very technologically advanced and we learned, adjusted, and excelled.
“AI scales at the speed of capability and trust, not licences. Build the people, and the tool delivers.”
Setting the right context to get people ready
Research increasingly suggests the biggest barriers to AI success are no longer technological. Instead, organisations continue to struggle with the preparedness of their people.
According to the AI Readiness in Workplace Survey by the Hong Kong Productivity Council in 2025, 88% of employees in surveyed companies have already used AI tools in their day-to-day work. Yet, a lack of AI expertise and training, as well as employee readiness gaps, continue to be prominent hurdles in practice.
Cheuk believes building the right context with courage and an open mind is the first step to empowering teams to use AI effectively and confidently. Equally important is transparent communication with the stakeholders throughout the journey.
“Organisations that are willing to embrace new technology – and proactively explore how it can enhance their operations – position themselves far ahead of those that hesitate,” she says.
“Beyond technical know-how, what matters most is creating an environment where people feel safe to experiment, ask questions, and share both wins and frustrations. When employees understand the ‘why’ behind the change and see how it benefits their day-to-day work, adoption becomes a genuine win-win rather than a top-down mandate.”
And a genuine confidence across a team, Cheuk believes, is reinforced by pairing with hands-on exposure, peer learning, and a culture that celebrates curiosity.
While equipping people with AI skills is important, Lui notes that human skills are those that give a true competitive advantage to enable teams to not only learn AI, but to also grow and thrive sustainably.
“The scarce skill isn’t prompting. The competitive advantages that humans still have are inspirational leadership, strategic thinking, collaboration, communication, authentic creativity, and ethical judgement,” she says.
“How can they know when a confident answer is quietly wrong? Comprehending business context and complex people dynamics matter more than tool fluency. People still check AI output as carefully as a colleague’s by exercising sound judgement.”
As such, she is focused on equipping people with best-in-class learning, hands-on experimentation, and open-mindedness to fail in an environment that advocates psychological safety.
“AI tools become obsolete very quickly. I treat them like toys. Make the learning experience fun and fulfilling. Productivity will then come.”
AI is not one person’s responsibility
As organisations grapple with AI transformation, another question has been raised: Who owns the responsibility for the change? HR, IT, or the emerging role of the chief AI officer? Successful AI adoption, Lui argues, cannot be delegated to a single executive.
“If a company creates a chief AI officer role and expects the job holder to lead and transform all AI-related matters in the whole company, the company over-simplifies the matter,” she says.
Like hiring a transformation officer, Lui indicates that organisations cannot and should not expect that person to drive the whole company’s transformation alone.
“AI is everyone’s accountability and agility. All functions and people across all levels and markets should identify the need to explore, experiment, learn fast, adjust, and excel,” Lui says.
“For example, HR knows the best about what the business needs and their pain points. They have the highest interest and required knowledge to explore the right tools.
“If you rely on the chief AI officer to do so, it will increase the internal transaction time and lots of time and energy will be spent on aligning priorities across functions in the company. By the time the decision is made, the technology will have evolved to the next phase. Then the company will always be in catch-up mode.”
Instead, Lui suggests organisations should create a role called ‘chief agent officer’ – an agent (agentic AI) reporting to the CEO and managing all agents in all functions.
“Some new companies are going in that direction of organisation design. HR’s role is to lead the organisation design and capability building to design a future-ready organisation to accelerate business growth,” she says.
“We should partner with business leaders to decide the future business strategy and then design the required organisation capability accordingly.”
Final advice
The verdict is clear – success in AI adoption will depend not on technology alone, but on how effectively organisations rethink how work gets done while empowering people to work alongside it.
“AI is an equaliser – it comes once in a generation and everyone starts at the same line regardless of your age, seniority, gender, and nationality,” Lui affirms.
“The world is full of possibilities. The winners won’t be those with the most tools, but those who redesign the business strategy and the corresponding organisational capability to deliver it phase by phase.”
Cheuk encourages the HR fraternity: “Don’t be afraid of the challenges ahead. Yes, there will be uncertainties, false starts, and moments of doubt, but that is the nature of any meaningful transformation.
“As long as you approach the journey with adaptability, an open and positive mindset, and a commitment to growth, you will find that these challenges become the very catalysts that propel you and your organisation to the next level.”
Photos / Provided
This article first appeared in the H1 2026 edition of Human Resources Online's Hong Kong e-magazine. Explore the full e-magazine here for insightful features and exclusive interviews with leaders across industries and regions!
AI, value, technology, HR leaders, skills, training, roles, disconnect, redesign, chief AI officer
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