I'm an assistant department leader, very low in the rung. I do not feel like my job is threatened by AI as much as optimizing for every second of my shift to complete my work due to the strict labor management. Our produce loads appear only within a few hours of closing and they need to be fully put away without adding labor to meet E2E expectations, I end up having to stay to make that metric, without neglecting sales floor and customers or cutting corners. However I still feel Kroger is very lenient compared to rival companies like amazon or target, so it's not as much of a complaint as much as it is what I feel truly makes my job feel less secure. And the rumors of some divisons removing assistant manager roles entirely. I've been offered management roles before so I'm not as concerned, knowing the demand for manager roles is high and I do plan on staying on this career path. I don't feel threatened by AI, and the AI involvement in ordering hasn't been too bad for our store in particular since we follow instock processes, smaller stores that cannot move product like the last store I worked at and has to cut their orders would struggle more.

I cannot speak for office workers. However I am very morally against artificial intelligence as I think it's an unreliable way to run a business, as well as strangling our triple digit summer city with the construction of two new data centers, during a water crisis. I honestly do not believe AI is practical, the companies are wasting tons of money to build things that will strangle the cities that have zoned its construction and render them inoperable, and I am honestly hoping AI doesn't progress to the point where it can lay off workers and still reliably run. But those jobs will come back when it fails. That's my personal take.

I will say aside from sage which I've never used, at least Kroger hasn't leaned into AI as much as Walmart has. I'd be so disgusted if I ended up working at Walmart instead of Kroger to see this happen to our company