What Is It Like to Work With Androids?

Last summer, the €16 billion science and technology company Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, brought in an HR specialist named Elenoide to handle employee development questions at HQ.

Brought, not hired. Elenoide is an android, a carefully crafted work of robotics capable of some of the most advanced AI known to HR tech.

Elenoide isn't meant to replace or even supplement the company's workforce. She's an experiment. Every interaction she has with an employee, says CHRO Dietmar Eidens, helps Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, "find the best differentiated approach to addressing a...