Employee Impact of AI in the Workplace

The Orange Hat Tech Summit 2026 included a short talk on the employee impact of AI. Solomon IT recorded Caleb Knight, who leads AI Tech at the University of Tennessee and works with AI Tennessee. The audience is owners and operators who are already hearing both promises and warnings about artificial intelligence at work.

The talk opens with context, not a product demo. AI Tennessee was launched about three years ago by Dr. Lynne Parker to grow the state's AI hub. Knight says AI has real uses inside businesses and that it will also change the labor market and the way work gets done. He describes the pace as faster than earlier technology shifts. The program works with government on responsible adoption, with K-12 and other academic institutions on education, and with industry partners.

The industry piece is AI TechX, created in March 2025. Knight outlines three tracks: research and innovation, workforce intelligence, and entrepreneurship. He cites more than 100 AI researchers on campus across domains. The practical aim is to match a business challenge, complexity, or opportunity with a research method that can be applied. He sorts firms into three groups. Some import AI into products and services that are not themselves AI products. Some export AI products and services to the market. Some are Tennessee startups trying to commercialize an idea.

The employee point is direct. Much of the public conversation is about job displacement. Knight argues the same technology can create jobs that do not exist yet, and that the speed of the change is what owners have to plan for. His close is a call to work across nonprofits, local government, startups, industry, and academia so Tennessee has a responsible path to grow that work. For a local firm, the useful next step is not a tool list. It is a clear view of which tasks, data, and roles would change first, and who owns that decision. Owners who want that read on their own systems and staff can start with a free IT assessment.