Are ‘New-Collar’ Workers the Key to AI Profitability?

AI continues to dominate conversations about business transformation, but achieving a meaningful return on investment requires more than adopting these new tools.

During the Detroit Regional Chamber’s June 2026 AI Office Hour program, Ida Byrd-Hill of Automation Workz reinforced that for businesses to gain meaningful value from their AI investment, they need to be able to identify inefficiencies, uncover opportunities, and empower those closest to its impact to do this through the “new collar” front-liner workers.

Byrd-Hill introduced the concept of the “new-collar” worker — professionals who sit between traditional blue-collar and white-collar roles, combining hands-on technical skills with emerging technologies such as AI, including cybersecurity and data analytics. Due to the rapid advancements in AI, new-collar workers learn best through on-the-job training, according to Byrd-Hill. This enables them to meet the speed and efficiency that AI delivers with the necessary guidance and validation to ensure accurate outputs. Without these types of employees, organizations risk costly errors, missed opportunities, and poor ROI, which can lead to AI divestment.

While there is widespread fear of AI replacing human roles, Byrd-Hill contradicted this, saying, “The skilled trades have now met the technology, and technology is going to bleed into skilled trades continually,” and emphasizes that the skilled trades have evolved, resulting in these new-collar workers.

Byrd-Hill urged organizations to begin their AI journey with internal alignment, particularly within human resources, before layering in new tools and redefining job responsibilities. This includes documenting institutional knowledge, identifying inefficiencies, and addressing operational “clutter” that can limit AI effectiveness. Without this foundational work, organizations risk applying advanced technology to broken processes, ultimately limiting ROI.

“The technology isn’t the first step,” she said. “It’s really about the people.”

The conversation also touched on the opportunity for Michigan, particularly as AI adoption accelerates demand for data centers and advanced infrastructure. Byrd-Hill noted that the state’s legacy in manufacturing and skilled trades uniquely positions it to lead in this next phase of innovation if it embraces the necessary investments.

“We must come to the realization with ourselves that people live on data,” she said. Specifically for Michigan, she added, “We use more data than anybody because we power some of the biggest factories there are in the world. We have got to have those data centers in our backyard because it makes us faster [and] it makes us more profitable.”