HR professionals are increasingly using ChatGPT to handle work that falls outside their traditional job duties, with 69% of HR-specific messages involving tasks unrelated to human resources. An OpenAI analysis of more than 800,000 messages submitted by U.S.-based ChatGPT users found that HR practitioners are among the occupational groups most likely to use the AI tool for cross-functional work, ranking third behind only design and customer experience roles.

Why Are HR Teams Stretching Beyond Their Core Responsibilities?

The phenomenon of HR professionals taking on work outside their traditional scope is not new. However, the acceleration of this trend has intensified significantly in recent years. HR teams have long been asked to handle responsibilities beyond human resources, but the pace accelerated after the COVID-19 pandemic, when organizations frequently tasked HR with developing diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies, establishing remote work policies, and launching employee well-being programs.

This expanded workload has created real strain within HR departments. A March 2025 study by Perceptyx found that more than 40% of surveyed HR leaders said their jobs had become more difficult during the preceding year, with 30% of respondents considering leaving the profession altogether. Around the same time, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that 57% of HR professionals believed their departments were understaffed.

What Types of Work Are HR Professionals Handling With ChatGPT?

OpenAI's analysis revealed a clear pattern in the kinds of tasks HR professionals are delegating to ChatGPT. The data shows that HR practitioners are using the tool to complete work that spans multiple business functions, with marketing tasks representing the largest share of cross-functional work.

• Marketing Tasks: Constituted 23% of occupational messages submitted by HR professionals using ChatGPT for outside work
• Engineering Tasks: Represented 18% of messages, reflecting HR's need to collaborate with technical teams on projects like infrastructure or system implementation
• Finance Tasks: Accounted for 16% of messages, including budget analysis, financial planning, and cost management activities

The trend is particularly pronounced in small businesses, where workers are more likely to tackle problems themselves rather than delegate them to specialized departments. This reflects the reality of smaller organizations, where employees often wear multiple hats out of necessity.

How to Effectively Collaborate With AI Tools in Your Role

• Develop Directional Skills: Research from the University of Texas at Austin and KPMG found that workers who excel at collaborating with AI tools by providing direction, oversight, and judgment tend to perform better than peers who simply delegate tasks to the technology
• Distinguish Between Prompting and Directing: Simply asking ChatGPT a question is fundamentally different from the ability to direct AI systems to perform complex tasks, requiring workers to understand how to frame problems and evaluate outputs
• Maintain Human Judgment: The most effective AI collaboration involves workers who understand when to use automation and when human decision-making is essential, rather than treating AI as a complete replacement for human expertise

The implications of this shift are significant for how organizations structure work. OpenAI noted that its findings demonstrate how AI can fundamentally change the division of labor within an organization by allowing workers to perform specialized tasks themselves rather than handing them off to dedicated departments.

Beyond cross-functional work, AI is also beginning to reshape core HR functions. ChatGPT and similar tools are now being used for tasks like setting employee compensation, synthesizing multiple employee handbooks during mergers or acquisitions, and other strategic HR activities. This evolution suggests that HR departments may increasingly take on a role similar to that of a "Chief Work Officer," tasked with deciding which tasks are best performed by automated technologies and which should remain with human professionals.

The broader takeaway is that ChatGPT and similar AI tools are not simply automating existing work; they are fundamentally changing how work gets distributed across organizations. HR professionals, already stretched thin by expanding responsibilities, are now using AI to bridge gaps between departments. Whether this represents a sustainable solution or a band-aid for understaffing remains an open question, but the data makes clear that the workplace is already shifting in response to these new capabilities.