Dive Brief:

• A new Microsoft and AFL-CIO partnership will focus on artificial intelligence and its effects on workers, the two organizations announced in a shared press release Monday.
• AFL-CIO and Microsoft said the effort is focused on three goals: sharing information with labor leaders, workers and students on AI trends; incorporating worker perspectives and expertise in AI development; and shaping public policy to support front-line workers’ technology skills and needs.
• Additionally, Microsoft said it would provide formal learning on AI developments to labor leaders and workers starting in winter 2024. The sessions will include on-demand, digital resources, and the company will work with the American Federation of Teachers on exploring opportunities to prepare students for AI jobs, Microsoft said.

Dive Insight:

With its billion-dollar investment in OpenAI, developer of generative AI platform ChatGPT, Microsoft could be viewed as a natural partner for labor organizations like AFL-CIO looking to help workers adjust to the changes wrought by AI.

But the announcement also makes sense for Microsoft, whose overtures to unions led AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America to support its acquisition of video game developer Activision Blizzard, Game Developer reported.

“By working directly with labor leaders, we can help ensure that AI serves the country’s workers,” Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft, said in the press release. “This groundbreaking partnership honors the rights of workers, learns from the advice of labor leaders as we develop technology, and helps us provide people with the skills that will become essential in a new AI era.”

Last year marked the formation of Microsoft’s first-ever union when quality assurance testers for subsidiary ZeniMax Studios held a successful representation vote. Microsoft said the AFL-CIO partnership includes an agreement by the tech giant to prove “a neutrality framework for future worker organizing by AFL-CIO affiliate unions.”

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