Hochul, DiNapoli want more information on AI’s threat and benefits to the workforce

State leaders in New York are looking to gain insight into how artificial intelligence is used in the workplace as the technology becomes more commonplace. Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced the FutureWorks Commission, which plans to offer policy proposals on AI best practices that spur innovation while protecting employees from automation. 

Speaking at an Association for a Better New York breakfast, she said the commission will be composed of AI experts, members of the tech industry, workers’ advocates and business leaders, and will be tasked with advising the governor on how best to navigate the proliferation of AI technology. “If AI is destined to reconfigure the global economy, New York must be on the front lines,” Hochul told business leaders.

And state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has gone straight to the companies themselves for answers on how they are incorporating AI in their workforce.

Late last month, DiNapoli’s office sent a previously unreported letter to 100 companies in the state’s pension fund, including Apple, Alphabet, Walmart, Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta, requesting greater transparency in their AI use. “While AI offers transformative potential for productivity, research has shown that AI’s use may have negative workforce management consequences,” DiNapoli wrote in the letter. “I am particularly concerned about the disproportionate impact on specific discrete occupations, tasks, and career stages – particularly early-career and entry-level workers in professions where AI may automate, rather than augment, professional judgment.”

Specifically, the comptroller’s office asked those companies to disclose data on jobs created, eliminated or restructured due to AI, the areas of the businesses most affected by the adoption of the technology, ways the companies are investing in adapting their human workforce to AI and oversight policies for AI deployment. “AI’s transformative power can boost companies’ bottom line, but it can also be destructive to their workforce,” DiNapoli said in a statement to City & State. “We want to know how AI is affecting employees at these companies.”

Roughly a month has passed since the comptroller’s office sent the letter, and it has begun receiving some responses. A number of companies, including Visa, Morgan Stanley, IBM and Verizon have requested meetings to discuss DiNapoli’s concerns further, according to his office.

One potential issue is that governors often like to announce blue-ribbon commissions to provide recommendations on major issues that wind up being delayed or end up going nowhere. Hochul, for example, launched a state Commission on the Future of Health Care in 2023 that was meant to have industry-changing recommendations by the end of 2024. It still has not released its overdue report, though the Times Union previewed some of its potential recommendations in June last year.

Hochul promised this would be different from other commissions. “I don’t do commissions just for the sake of saying, ‘Oh, I checked the box. I did a commission,’” she said. “This is going to have real, tangible recommendations that we can then implement, either by executive order, by policy, or in our next budget.” Hochul has not yet announced a deadline for the commission’s work to conclude.