2025/11/22 by Cornelius Heimstädt, Maximilian Heimstädt · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Computer Science · #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #AI in Service Interactions
paper · doi:10.1108/s0733-558x20250000097015
openalex publication_date 2025/11/22 · openalex created_date 2025/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Individuals who search for expert advice can now obtain it through algorithmic expert services. Expert advice is generated by an algorithmic system and provided over a digital interface. Human experts disappear from direct interaction with clients, but instead orchestrate the algorithmic generation of expert advice from the back office of these services. Algorithmic expert services are often associated with the hope of making expert advice available to a large number of clients in a profitable way. However, this expectation is challenged by research on the role of shared expert values in and around organizations. In this study, we therefore explore how human experts in the back office of algorithmic expert services deal with tensions between their expert values and the imperative of scaling. Empirically, we draw on ethnographic material from a startup developing an algorithmic expert service for agriculture. We find that the human experts in the back office experience tension between their core value (i.e., reducing the environmental damages caused by pesticides) and managerial demands to maximize the app’s user retention. The experts navigate this tension by constantly experimenting with new representations of advice in the app’s interface, a process in which they repeatedly embrace their core value while simultaneously reinterpreting it, until they eventually find a way of representing advice that accommodates both their core value and the monopolistic tendencies of digital capitalism. Our study thus contributes to debates about whether expert advice can be scaled up by organizations using algorithmic means, and the role of values therein.