How does work change when AI no longer merely supports humans but increasingly acts autonomously? This question was at the center of the international “Dark Side of Agentic AI” Workshop, hosted at the Dr. Theo and Friedl Schöller Research Lab “Future of Work” on September 23 and 24, 2026.
The workshop brought together doctoral researchers, postdoctoral researchers and senior Information Systems scholars to explore the potential unintended consequences of increasingly autonomous AI systems for individuals, organizations and society. Technostress, algorithmic control, responsibility, autonomy and emerging human-AI dependencies were among the central topics discussed.
The workshop format was particularly well aligned with the idea behind the Schöller Research Lab. The Lab was designed as an environment for collaborative research. Over the two workshop days, this concept became tangible: participants moved between small-group discussions, jointly developed research projects, challenged theoretical and methodological assumptions, and generated new research questions.
One highlight was the collaborative development of a Research Agenda for the Dark Side of Agentic AI. Participants first identified unanswered research questions, theoretical challenges, and societal and organizational concerns before synthesizing them into broader themes and emerging directions for future Information Systems research
In this way, the workshop addressed questions that are at the heart of the Schöller Research Lab “Future of Work”: How do emerging digital technologies transform human work? How do tasks, skills and responsibilities change? And how can organizations shape technological innovation while maintaining a meaningful role for humans in increasingly autonomous digital work systems?
The workshop was organized by Prof. Sven Laumer (FAU) together with Dr. Henri Jalo and Prof. Henri Pirkkalainen (Tampere University). Prof. Alexander Benlian and Prof. Monideepa Tarafdar provided the workshop’s two keynote presentations.
Two days of intensive collaboration demonstrated precisely what the Research Lab aims to enable: bringing people, ideas and perspectives together to better understand and shape the future of work.