Artificial intelligence applications such as self-driving car, intelligent customer service robots, and intelligent financial robots have brought many conveniences to the public and brought huge benefits to various industries. Therefore, they are rapidly popularized in life and work scenarios. After the introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace, this article focuses on the impact of skill requirements with creativity and human-machine collaboration ability on employees’ thriving at work. We believe that in the artificial intelligence application scenario, skill requirements can help employees free themselves from repetitive and complicated work, so that they can better appreciate the value, significance and achievement of work, and obtain a happy psychological experience of job competence, which can stimulate their thriving at work. Through the empirical test, we find that skill requirements triggered by artificial intelligence can enhance employees’ sense of competence and enhance their sense of work vigor. Moreover, the higher the cooperation between employees and intelligent machines is, the higher the human-computer cooperation relationship is. Skill demands will make employees feel a stronger sense of competence, and their energy will be more vigorous. The application of artificial intelligence technology crafts the psychology of employees by changing skill requirements.
The research has the following theoretical contributions. First, we introduce artificial intelligence into the field of employee psychology and behavior, and find that in artificial intelligence application scenarios, the increase in skills requirements triggers positive changes of employees’ work enthusiasm, which enriches the research on the relationship between skills requirements and thriving at work. Second, we reveal the inner psychological mechanism of skill requirements affecting thriving at work. In view of the fact that the introduction of artificial intelligence into enterprises has led to an increase in skill requirements, this article finds that skill requirements affect the need for competence, which in turn affects the sense of work vigor, which opens up the internal black box where skill requirements affect the sense of work vigor. Third, from the perspective of human-computer cooperation relationship, the analysis of the boundary conditions that play a role between skill requirements and employees’ work enthusiasm has enriched the research on thriving at work.
In short, this article introduces artificial intelligence into the field of organizational psychology, enriches the research on the relationship between skill requirements and employees’ thriving at work, and also provides inspiration for companies to rationally stimulate employees’ thriving at work.