Artificial Socialization? How Artificial Intelligence Applications Can Shape A New Era of Employee Onboarding Practices

Onboarding has always emphasized personal contact with new employees. Excellent onboarding can extend employee retention and improve loyalty. Even in a physical setting, the onboarding process is demanding for both the newcomer and the onboarding organization. Remote work, in contrast, has made this process even more challenging by forcing a rapid shift from offline to online onboarding practices. Organizations are adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to support work processes, such as hiring processes or innovation facilitation, which could shape a new era of work practices. However, it has not been studied how AI applications can or should support onboarding. Therefore, our research conducts a literature review on current onboarding practices and uses expert interviews to evaluate AI's potential and pitfalls for each action. We contribute to the literature by presenting a holistic picture of onboarding practices and assessing potential application areas of AI in the onboarding process.