Human agency and deliberate reassertion in the age of generative AI: Evidence from online labor platforms

Abstract Platform workers are on the frontlines of AI-driven task transformation, leading to challenges in linking cognitive, agency-related, and behavioral responses to GenAI use. This study investigates these tensions, focusing on how and why platform workers reassert their agency. Building on cognitive dissonance theory and the human agency loop, our model proposes that cognitive dissonance both constrains human agency and is associated with deliberate reassertion, revealing paradoxical dynamics in human-AI interaction. Drawing on a quantitative survey of 232 platform workers in the UK, we empirically examine four environmental triggers that link to cognitive dissonance of GenAI use for work, which in turn relates to human agency and its deliberate reassertion. By connecting environmental triggers, psychological tension, and behavioral responses, this research advances IS theory on GenAI and human agency, offers actionable insights for platform governance, and provides a foundation for future research on GenAI use for work.