Digital Platforms and Artificial Intelligence: Between Professionals and Clients

Digital work platforms are one of the most significant changes that have taken place in the last ten years in the labour market (ILO, 2018; Umar et al., 2021) and in the consumer sphere (Cruz and Gameiro, 2023). The use of technological devices breaks with the traditional model of a company, in the sense that everything takes place in a virtual environment. In other words, there are no face-to-face relationships between worker and client, and work is coordinated, regulated and monitored by algorithms (Bucher et al., 2021; Del Bono, 2019; Möhlmann and Zalmanson, 2017), as is consumption itself (Cruz and Gameiro, 2023). The processes of technological innovation have in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithms two of the most structuring and active dimensions of change, and digital platforms are a paradigmatic example of one of the groups of tasks where AI has been applied, namely the matching of supply and demand for services (OECD, 2019). Algorithms help to ensure that search systems serve as key resources for managing digital platforms and mediating the transaction of services (Jarrahi and Sutherland, 2019), particularly due to the large-scale data they involve. There are also benefits related to increasing the efficiency of companies, through a change in the analysis of information that influences the decision-making of economic agents (Kellogg et al., 2020), and consequently, labour and consumer relations themselves, on which they have positive and negative impacts (Cruz and Gameiro, 2023). This algorithmic management is based on computer-based technology that combines the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing and AI. Based on a case study of a platformised business organisation, this communication aims to analyse the effects of AI and IoT on professional relationships within the organisation and with clients and partner organisations.