Is AI a functional equivalent to expertise in organizations and decision-making? Opportunities and pitfalls for AI in the context of just transitions

The urgency of addressing climate change and achieving a just transition to sustainability has never been greater, as the world approaches critical environmental thresholds. While artificial intelligence (AI) presents both opportunities and challenges in this context, its role in organizational decision-making and expertise remains underexplored. This paper examines the interplay between AI and human expertise within organizations, focusing on how AI can complement or substitute traditional expertise across factual, temporal, and social dimensions. Drawing on Social Systems Theory, we argue that while AI excels in data processing and rapid decision-making, it falls short in contextual adaptation, long-term strategic thinking, and social legitimacy—areas where human expertise remains indispensable. And this is, we observe, particularly evident in problems connected with climate change and sustainability more broadly, where the tensions for organizational decision-making -and governance become even denser as much in the factual, temporal and social dimensions, making them into very complex, ‘super-wicked’, problem situations. Thus, there is a need to think more in detail about possible hybrid approaches, integrating AI’s computational strengths with human interpretive and adaptive capabilities, which may offer promising pathways for advancing organizational decision-making in the overly complex, wicked decision-making scenarios characteristic of just transitions. However, this requires careful consideration of power dynamics, trust-building, and the ethical implications of AI adoption. By moving beyond techno-optimism, this study highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of AI’s functional and social plausibility in organizational settings, offering insights for fostering equitable and sustainable transitions in an increasingly complex world.