Professor Caroline Ruiner

Join us for a special event with Prof Caroline Ruiner from the University of Honenheim, Germany as she discusses AI in the workplace.

As AI increasingly augments knowledge-intensive work, its impact extends beyond efficiency to the subjective experience of meaningful work. This talk examines how AI integration affects perceived meaningfulness in professional contexts. We combine an experimental study on AI-supported writing tasks with qualitative interviews with physicians and lawyers. The findings show that AI does not directly diminish meaningful work. Instead, mental effort emerges as the key mechanism: meaningfulness depends on cognitive engagement and perceived agency. The results highlight the importance of designing AI systems that preserve human autonomy and epistemic contribution rather than optimizing for automation alone.

Biography

Caroline Ruiner is Professor of Sociology and Vice-President for Digital Transformation and Sustainability at the University of Hohenheim (website). Her research examines how digital technologies and AI reshape work at individual, team, and organisational levels, with a particular focus on employment relations, working conditions, and systems of representation. Her expertise includes highly skilled and solo self-employed knowledge workers, as well as work in high-reliability organisations and system-relevant sectors, such as hospitals, logistics and transport. A central strand of her work addresses the twin transformation, exploring the interplay between sustainability and digital transformation, including circular economy, processes of valuation and paradox work.