Participatory AI and Industrial Democracy: The Role of Social Dialogue in Governing Workplace Technologies

In the contemporary discourse surrounding Artificial Intelligence, the invocation of human-centric design often masks a profound avoidance: the interrogation of human relationality and collective agency within technological spaces. This chapter reframes the debate around workplace AI governance, positing that the crucial determinant of AI’s socio-economic impact is not the mere presence of human oversight, but the structure of participation through which humans collectively shape technological trajectories. Drawing from recent Italian experiences in industrial relations, we show how participatory AI emerges as a political and institutional project rather than merely an ethical corrective. Analyzing pioneering company-level collective agreements, we illustrate the tangible mechanisms – such as joint monitoring bodies, explicit prohibitions on worker substitution, and protections against surveillance – that unions and employers are beginning to negotiate. These mechanisms represent the concrete institutional practices through which a high road to AI adoption is carved – one that channels innovation toward inclusive productivity gains rather than intensified control or rent extraction. This form of negotiated governance does not eliminate power asymmetries, but it opens up arenas where these imbalances can be surfaced, challenged, and, at times, reconfigured. Ultimately, this chapter argues that industrial democracy in the era of AI is not an anachronism but an essential precondition for humane and effective technological innovation. It calls for a participatory framework robust enough to democratize not just the application, but the very creation of workplace technologies – reclaiming the promise of AI as a collaborative, rather than coercive, force in shaping the future of work.