Employee Chatbot Use: How to Guide Workplace AI Effectively

Published

4 days ago

September 6, 2025

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Employees increasingly adopt conversational chatbots at the workplace. Yet without strategic oversight, such usage might default to shallow, efficiency-driven usage, undermining the opportunities for personal and organizational growth. Therefore, leaders should intentionally shape an AI use culture that facilitates human flourishing and organizational innovation. Here’s how to achieve it.

Introduction

The rise of advanced AI, and conversational chatbots in particular, has created an urgent leadership challenge that most executives are overlooking. How your employees use chatbots isn’t just their individual choice – it has broader organizational implications. Collective chatbot usage patterns are shaping what I call an organizational “AI use culture.”

Because chatbots are cheap, fast, and accessible, many employees adopt them independently to accomplish work tasks. This means AI use culture will emerge whether you intentionally shape it or not. The key difference is that by intentionally guiding it, you can define how it unfolds. If you ignore it, the culture will likely default to shallow, efficiency-driven uses, like obtaining ready-made ideas, copy-pasting drafts, and outsourcing critical thinking. These approaches feel productive in the moment but gradually undermine the learning and creativity of employees that drive long-term organizational growth.

To avoid this prospect, organizational leaders should actively cultivate a more human-centered AI use culture that balances efficiency with learning, creativity, and collaboration.

Shaping effective AI use culture

Shaping effective AI use culture: A practical guide

Human-centered AI use at the workplace means that chatbots are used in ways that enhance key human flourishing factors and facilitate the fulfillment of professional needs, not undermine them. This doesn’t mean chatbots should be avoided or prohibited. Instead, it requires a shared understanding of how AI should be used and why those choices matter.

As a leader, you can’t afford silence when it comes to chatbots. Your employees are probably already using them, the only question is how exactly. Acknowledge this reality explicitly, and if possible, conduct interviews or cross-department surveys to reveal the general chatbot use patterns. Based on the obtained insights, you will clearly see whether the tendencies for chatbot usage are aligned with human development or are simply outsourcing strategies.

For example, looking at the data, you can ask yourself: Are these usage patterns aligned with a need for professional growth? Does this contribute to skill development? Does this enhance mastery, autonomy, and creativity of employees? If everyone in the company uses chatbots like this, will we have a strong human potential and innovation over the long term? If you find any red flags, it can be a sign to intervene with the following strategies.

1. Establish the “sandwich approach”

One of the most effective methods for preserving human agency while leveraging AI capabilities is what can be called the “chatbot sandwich rule.” Within this method, an employee generates “raw material” first, that is, writing a draft, developing initial ideas, creating a presentation structure, designing a pipeline, whatever their work requires (the bottom layer). Then they use a chatbot for feedback, critical evaluation, and reflection on their ideas (the middle layer). Finally, they rewrite or redesign based on that feedback (the top layer).

For example, before presenting an idea to a project leader, an employee might run through several rounds of critical revision with a chatbot, using it to identify weaknesses, explore alternatives, and strengthen their argument. This approach preserves learning and authenticity while potentially saving time and improving quality.

2. Position AI as an intellectual sparring partner

Instead of asking “Write this for me,” employees should learn to prompt chatbots with “Challenge this idea,” “What am I missing here?” or “How could this approach fail?” Chatbots excel as question-askers and can help employees get to the right answers on their own, thereby learning the pathway to a solution and solving it independently next time. Encourage employees to use chatbots as sparring partners or performance coaches that help define goals, challenge assumptions, and evaluate ideas from multiple angles. This transforms AI from a content-generation tool into a thinking enhancement tool.

3. Develop AI literacy as a core competency

Your employees need skills to evaluate AI outputs critically, understanding potential biases, limitations, and gaps. Train them to ask probing questions: What assumptions are built into this analysis? Where might this information be incomplete? How does this align with our specific organizational context?

4. Balance AI and human collaboration

Some of the best organizational thinking emerges from human discussions where different perspectives result in unexpected connections. Regular human check-ins serve multiple purposes: they reality-test AI-assisted work, ensuring it remains grounded in practical constraints. They bring contextual knowledge, emotional intelligence, and diverse experience that AI cannot replicate. And they challenge assumptions based on real-world implementation experience and insights rooted in organizational culture and politics.

5. Avoid AI creativity trap

To complete this guide: here’s something that every executive should reflect on: if your employees use chatbots the same way as your competitors’ employees, which basically means generic question-answer sessions, quick rewrites, standard brainstorming, how likely is it that your company will be much more creative to innovate your way past competitors?

Research suggests that when organizations rely on similar AI strategies, their outputs might begin to converge toward similar ideas and structures. This convergence isn’t immediately obvious because each company’s outputs appear unique in isolation. But zoom out, and you’ll see troubling patterns of similarity.

Therefore, you should promote non-conventional, creative chatbot use cases. For example, train your project managers to use chatbots as a harsh critic, systematically exploring how initiatives could fail before they launch. Encourage your training departments to use AI as a “learning coach,” helping employees create personalized development pathways. Or ask your HR managers to analyse qualitative survey data with chatbots to reveal implicit information they might be overlooking.

Final thoughts

Your organization’s AI use culture is forming right now, shaped by hundreds of daily interactions between your employees and chatbots. You can either let this happen by default, risking a workforce that becomes dependent rather than empowered, or you can actively cultivate an approach that enhances human capabilities while leveraging AI’s strengths.

The choice you make will determine how adaptive, creative, and innovative it remains as AI continues evolving. In a world where everyone has access to the same powerful AI tools, your competitive advantage won’t come from the technology itself. Rather, it will come from how thoughtfully your people use it.

About the Author

Nick Kabrel is a research associate at the University of Zurich and a Digital Society Initiative Excellence Fellow. His research focuses on organizational behavior and human-centered AI at the workplace.

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C3.ai Unveils Agentic Process Automation to Transform Business Workflows

Published

2 hours ago

September 10, 2025

Ghazal Ahmed

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) is one of the Hot AI Stocks to Keep on Your Radar. On September 9, the company announced C3 AI Agentic Process Automation, a new product that leverages autonomous AI agents to handle business and operational workflows across enterprises.

The C3 AI Agentic Process Automation handles numerous types of business processes such as order-to-cash, customer service, invoice processing, debt collection, supplier onboarding, procurement, and employee onboarding, industrial operations, manufacturing operations, production planning, inventory management, and aircraft maintenance.

By replacing traditional robotic process automation tools with AI models, the C3 AI Agentic Process Automation allows enterprises to work with the reasoning capabilities of modern AI models with pre-determined steps and controls.

“C3 AI Agentic Process Automation is a breakthrough that will mark a decisive shift in the very nature of work. With our software, customers can handle key business processes from start to finish, making complex workflows efficient, reliable, and repeatable.” -Stephen Ehikian, CEO of C3 AI.

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) is an enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software company involved in building and operating enterprise-scale AI applications and accelerating digital transformation.

While we acknowledge the potential of AI as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

Disclosure: None.

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Zoho Contracts Brings AI and CRM Integration to Simplify Small Business Legal Workflows

Published

3 hours ago

September 10, 2025

Leland McFarland

At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, I sat down with Arjun Kesavan Balasubramanian from the Zoho Contracts team. Their conversation focused on how the platform’s newest features—including AI assistance and deeper CRM integration—are designed to save small businesses time, reduce risk, and improve transparency when handling contracts.

For small business owners, contracts are a constant part of operations. Every vendor agreement, client deal, or partnership relies on legal language that can be confusing and time-consuming. Traditionally, managing contracts requires a patchwork of tools, lawyers, and endless email threads. Zoho Contracts is aiming to change that by providing one unified platform for the entire contract lifecycle.

One Tool for the Entire Contract Lifecycle

Balasubramanian began by outlining what Zoho Contracts offers today:

“So Zoho Contracts is Zoho’s contract lifecycle management software. So, if you want to transform your entire contract lifecycle, if you want to have one tool to manage the contract requests, the collaboration, the approval negotiation signature and all of the post execution stages like amendments, renewals, extensions, termination and the contract analytics part. All of this is covered in one tool, which is Zoho Contracts.”

For small businesses, this means avoiding the chaos of juggling Word documents, email attachments, and multiple online tools. Instead, owners can initiate a contract request, collaborate internally, send it for approval, negotiate terms, and sign—all without leaving the platform. Post-execution tasks like renewals and amendments are tracked automatically.

AI Assistance for Contract Insights

One of the headline features from the 2025 update is the integration of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT into the platform.

“The recent features that we launched with this update is basically our integration with LLMs like ChatGPT. So what that adds to the CLM system is it adds an additional layer of intelligence. So if you are working on a contract document, let’s say 50 pages long, it would be amazing to have an assistant that will tell you what are the key insights from this contract, right? Like it can summarize your contract. It can give you an update on what are the potential risks I have in this contract and it can extract what are the obligations you have in this particular contract so that AI assistant is a powerful feature.”

For small business owners who don’t have an in-house legal team, this is a big step forward. Instead of combing through dozens of pages, AI can highlight deadlines, risks, or unusual clauses in seconds.

Zoho also plans to introduce its own AI engine, Zia, to handle these tasks in a privacy-first way.

Where AI Fits—and Where Humans Still Matter

I asked the question many small business owners are thinking: Can AI really handle contract work without risk?

“That’s a good one. So if you think about it, you have an AI assistant that can summarize that can tell you what is the risk and what is not, but you still need a human judgment to validate whatever the AI is saying, because legal is this one sector where the nuances are a lot, right.”

Balasubramanian explained that while AI can suggest missing clauses, flag obligations, or summarize terms, humans remain essential for judgment. Industry regulations, company policies, and regional laws require context AI cannot fully capture.

In practice, AI reduces the time it takes for a business owner—or their lawyer—to make informed decisions. It speeds up drafting and reviewing but doesn’t eliminate the need for oversight.

Data Privacy and BYOK Integration

When it comes to AI, data privacy is always top of mind for small businesses. I pressed on this point, asking what data is shared with OpenAI when using the ChatGPT integration.

“Definitely. So this particular ChatGPT integration is covered as bring your own key integration. So if you already are using ChatGPT at your organization, you’re bringing that key and you’re enabling this integration with Zoho Contracts, right? So you’re already OK with ChatGPT processing that data to help you improve efficiency or make your contract management easier.”

This Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) approach means businesses maintain control. If they don’t want to use ChatGPT, they can opt out while still leveraging other features. Soon, Zoho’s own LLM will give businesses a private option that doesn’t use contract data for external training.

Balasubramanian emphasized:

“Exactly. Yeah. So what Zoho has achieved is trust, and that trust was built over 3 decades… when Zoho LLM is implemented into our system, the decision becomes very, very easy for our customers.”

CRM Integration for Sales and Legal Transparency

For many small businesses, contracts and customer relationships are tightly linked. Closing a deal often requires quick contract generation and approval. Zoho has deepened its integration with Zoho CRM to make this process seamless.

“So if you are a CRM user. And when you see that a deal is imminent, you can just create a record right from your deal, record in CRM and all of that information in CRM will be fetched. It will be automatically mapped into Zoho’s Contracts. A contract document will be generated and that document is also available as an attachment in Zoho CRM.”

This ensures sales teams don’t have to switch tools or chase down legal staff for paperwork. Contracts are automatically generated from CRM data, cutting down errors and improving speed.

Pre-Approved Templates and Clause Libraries

Another feature aimed at small businesses is the inclusion of templates and a clause library.

“We have 14 predefined templates and these templates are some of the commonly used contracts that any business would need, but actually we would still recommend the small businesses to actually do a check of whether these clauses are relevant for the industry that they are operating in.”

The benefit for small businesses is clear: rather than starting from scratch, they can use ready-made templates and adapt them for their industry. Balasubramanian noted that lawyers are still important but that Zoho Contracts can reduce legal dependencies by providing fallback clauses and pre-approved language.

I summarized it well:

“So more of a way to give a lawyer something that’s you know, 90% of the way there instead of starting from scratch.”

And Balasubramanian confirmed:

“Exactly. Exactly. It’s about reducing the dependency. It’s not about replacing lawyers.”

This approach cuts costs while ensuring negotiations move quickly. For example, if a customer requests a discount, fallback options are already documented. Sales staff don’t need to escalate every negotiation to managers or legal counsel.

Regional and Multi-Organization Support

Zoho Contracts has also expanded features to support businesses operating in multiple regions or managing different subsidiaries.

“We support multi organization. We have some regional settings covered now you can add files and URLs and attachments to your contract documents.”

For small businesses growing across borders—or simply managing multiple LLCs—this flexibility helps keep operations compliant without increasing complexity.

Practical Benefits for Small Businesses

Throughout the discussion, I pointed out how these updates can save business owners “a whole lot of time and effort.” That’s the central promise of Zoho Contracts: reduce headaches, speed up workflows, and improve legal preparedness without overwhelming owners or requiring full-time legal staff.

The combination of AI insights, CRM integration, and pre-approved templates provides a practical toolkit for:

Freelancers negotiating service contracts
Small retailers managing vendor agreements
Agencies drafting client proposals
Growing businesses dealing with renewals and amendments

By centralizing the contract process, Zoho Contracts helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

Trust as a Competitive Advantage

One theme that came up repeatedly was trust. Zoho has long emphasized privacy, and that principle is guiding its AI development. With many small businesses wary of where their data goes, Zoho’s commitment to in-house AI and transparent integrations is a differentiator.

Balasubramanian summed it up:

“Even though we have chat integration, people would still ask when is Zoho LLM coming? Because they would really want to switch. And yeah, that trust I think. Will definitely help the adoption of LLM as well.”

For small businesses, trust isn’t abstract—it directly impacts whether they feel safe using a platform for sensitive contracts.

Where to Learn More

As the interview wrapped up, Balasubramanian directed small businesses to explore the platform further:

“Yeah, people can learn more about Zoho Contracts at zoho.com/contracts.”

Final Takeaway for Small Business Owners

Zoho Contracts is positioning itself as more than just software—it’s a way for small businesses to work smarter with contracts. By combining AI, templates, CRM integration, and a privacy-focused approach, the platform provides a strong alternative to traditional, fragmented contract management.

Small business owners should see this as an opportunity to:

Cut down on manual legal tasks
Speed up deal closings
Reduce dependency on external counsel for routine negotiations
Improve compliance and risk awareness
Build a scalable foundation for growth

In the end, Zoho Contracts doesn’t remove the need for lawyers, but it does ensure that small businesses come to the table prepared—with better insights, faster processes, and fewer headaches.

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Business

Oracle’s Larry Ellison briefly surpasses Elon Musk as world’s richest man

Published

4 hours ago

September 10, 2025

Danielle Kaye

Danielle KayeBusiness reporter

Getty Images Larry's head and shoulders can be seen as he sits in the Oval Office, in front of a shelf with trophies and a decorative plate. He is wearing a black suit jacket, deep red tie, and has a moustache and goatee. — Larry Ellison, pictured at an Oval Office meeting earlier this year, has overtaken Elon Musk in fortune

Elon Musk briefly lost his title as the world’s richest person to Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and an ally of US President Donald Trump.

Ellison’s wealth surged to $393bn (£290bn) on Wednesday morning, surpassing Musk’s $385bn (£284bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The jump came after shares in Oracle, which make up a significant part of Ellison’s fortune, soared more than 40%, boosted by the database software company’s surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence (AI) deals.

But the firm’s share price had shed some of those gains by the end of the day, putting Musk back on top.

Before briefly losing it to Ellison, Musk had held the title of world’s richest person for nearly one year.

He could receive a pay package worth over $1tn (£740bn) if he hits a list of ambitious targets over the next decade, the board of the electric car firm has proposed.

But shares in Musk’s most valuable business, Tesla, have fallen this year.

The electric vehicle maker has grappled with investor jitters over the Trump administration’s rollback of electric vehicle initiatives, on top of consumer backlash to Musk’s political involvement.

Oracle has recently been propelled by growing demand for data centre infrastructure.

The company projected as part of its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that revenue from its cloud business will jump 77% this year, to $18bn, with further growth expected in the coming years.

Oracle has reported a surge in demand among AI companies for its data centres, which helped push its stock dramatically higher.

It signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with customers in the last quarter and anticipates several more deals in the months ahead, chief executive Safra Catz said on Tuesday.

Trump ties and media ambitions

Ellison, 81, helped start Oracle in 1977 and rose to prominence in the 1990s, when he became a public figure known as much for his lavish lifestyle as for the database company behind his fortune.

He was Oracle’s chief executive until 2014 and is now the company’s chairman and chief technology officer.

And he has positioned himself as an ally to President Trump.

When Trump returned to the White House in January, Ellison appeared alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son to announce a project called Stargate, to build out AI infrastructure in the US.

Oracle has also emerged as a possible buyer of TikTok, the app owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. TikTok is facing a ban in the US unless it divests itself of its ByteDance ownership.

In January, when asked whether he was open to Musk buying TikTok, Trump responded: “I’d like Larry to buy it, too.”

Ellison’s media ambitions extend beyond TikTok.

He funded the bulk of a $8bn bid by his son to acquire Paramount, which owns CBS and MTV.

That deal between Paramount and the media company Skydance, which is controlled by his son David, closed last month.

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