Shaping the Future of AI Policy: Leveraging AI’s Potential for Positive Impact on the Workforce

By Terralynn Forsyth, FutureFit AI

As AI innovation accelerates, employers across industries increasingly demand tech-savvy workers and grapple with AI’s transformative impact on how work gets done. Government leaders and policymakers now must focus more explicitly on how the AI industry can be regulated to ensure that the technology is designed, developed, and deployed in a way that protects Americans’ rights and safety while ensuring every citizen has a viable path to economic opportunity.

While polarizing headlines dominate the news cycle, we believe that workforce leaders have a unique opportunity to shape AI policy to enable responsible innovation and cross-sector partnerships designed to enhance American competitiveness through skilled labor. As a member of the America Forward Coalition, we were invited to raise this view when U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sought feedback on a white paper detailing the potential benefits and risks of AI. We believe policy frameworks like this that incorporate multiple perspectives are essential to guiding effective innovation and recognize the responsibility to ensure America’s workforce is protected from the potential adverse consequences of AI.

Working at the frontier of workforce technology, FutureFit AI recognizes both the potential and risks that AI presents to the workforce. AI is inherently a disruptive technology poised to both automate and augment aspects of work. But AI is also an expansive technology with the potential to connect, guide, and support workers to sustainable jobs in undersupplied industries. Our work with state agencies like Connecticut and Michigan leverages AI to connect job seekers to personalized roadmaps of in-demand careers, in-state training and education programs, and best-fit job opportunities while providing employers with a tailored pool of diverse candidates in critical sectors. Generative AI tools, like our recently announced Career Copilot, explore new avenues of service by connecting job seekers to training and work opportunities through a more personalized, 24/7 multi-language conversational experience while increasing productivity for workforce development professionals. By using AI to bridge the gap between talent and in-demand jobs aligned with user needs and preferences, we can more effectively accelerate workforce transformation and advance American competitiveness in a changing economy.

We are just one example among many of how AI can extend opportunity to those who need it most. Policymakers must recognize the positive role that AI can play in unlocking a more efficient and flourishing future of work, not just the inherent disruptive risks associated with its more widespread use.

With that in mind — and amidst increased lawmaker attention and activity on AI issues — Senator Cassidy’s recent white paper is encouraging. We believe that AI holds enormous potential to create stronger, more accessible workforce development systems, and our recommendations for Senator Cassidy and his colleagues emphasized the following four areas:

1. Humanize workforce supports: Focus on the role AI can play in making workforce development more human, not less. That looks like less time spent on routine administrative tasks (e.g. eligibility and enrollment) and first-layer services for staff, and more time spent supporting job seekers with the greatest barriers. For some workers, optimal support goes beyond just training and looks like interview prep, resume writing, career navigation, and even coaching, which can be enhanced and automated using AI. Other workers will require more intensive wraparound supports. AI can identify and escalate these cases to a coach or agency through advances in natural language processing and sentiment analysis.
2. Drive service outcomes: There is an opportunity to use AI to improve how funded programs and services are designed, delivered, and measured to improve progress toward outcomes through personalized, self-serve workforce supports. For example, prospective users might be more inclined to engage with available resources through a chatbot, rather than tedious forms, while natural language AI could help track and capture Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) reporting outcomes.
3. Improve workforce efficiency: AI also holds the potential to make workplaces more efficient and productive. Recent studies over the past year on the impact of ChatGPT and similar tools in the workplace show promising results on productivity and creativity, but also consistently show one major theme: they are being used to streamline workflows and accelerate efficiency. An analysis by Nielsen earlier this year found that generative AI increased worker productivity by an average of 66 percent. We believe AI can be used effectively in the workplace to accelerate transitions and performance when designed as a tool to work and coach alongside workers.
4. Unlock system-wide economic benefits: Beyond the benefits that AI can provide to job seekers and workers, utilizing AI to support the workforce system will ultimately improve American competitiveness and expand economic opportunity. By accelerating the home-grown talent needed to develop and sustain essential industries, like the microchip production advanced by the CHIPS and Science Act, AI can raise the tide to lift all boats.

By shaping the development and deployment of AI tools for the workforce through this lens, the U.S. also has the opportunity to address labor shortages through targeted career transitions while simultaneously enhancing the nation’s competitive edge. Our work with state agency partners has shown that this works. But this work can only continue through thoughtful federal policy frameworks and approaches to AI regulation by keeping the unique opportunities and potential top of mind. We’re appreciative of the opportunity to share our perspective on the potential of AI, and for our continued work with the America Forward team and other Coalition members to shape essential federal policies for a more positive future.

Terralynn Forsyth is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at FutureFit AI.