HR Executive: AI Must Become a Daily Tool, Not Just a Training Topic

Artificial intelligence needs to become a working tool for every employee, said Natalya Albrekht, deputy general director for HR at En+ and RUSAL. She spoke at the XXVII Summit of HR Directors of Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

Albrekht said HR's role now involves rethinking what each job actually entails given AI adoption, training people for new conditions and rebuilding company structures.

She noted the focus has shifted from how many people were trained to use AI to how many actually apply it. The companies introduced metrics called "adoption rate" and "active AI use."

For industrial companies, faster AI adoption offers a chance to boost labor productivity, she said, pointing to RUSAL, where productivity between new plants and older Soviet-era facilities can differ by more than two and a half times.

She explained that internal options for improving processes and raising productivity are nearly exhausted, making new technology necessary despite the serious costs.

En+ and RUSAL are already accelerating AI adoption and changing how their IT function works. The companies are moving away from the "customer-executor" model and training several hundred business-function specialists, including from production, in vibe coding so they can build prototypes themselves.

Albrekht said this led to an AI product factory where business functions quickly create solutions and IT turns them into industrial digital products.

The next step is teaching AI tools to schoolchildren, students and teachers at partner institutions. She said the goal is to bring AI to the masses because some of those young people will join the companies.

This year the companies launched the "AI Start" program, which explains artificial intelligence in a simple, accessible, game-like format and shows practical applications, including production tasks. Several thousand students and teachers have already completed it.