Over the past several years, many headlines have claimed that ‘AI is going to revolutionize the way we do business’. Conversely, many others have claimed that AI involves risks to an organization that most may be unwilling to take.
Cautiously approaching the benefits of AI in the workplace is seemingly the way forward for the majority of organizations.
AI is generally useful for improving processes in the workplace.
LinkedIn writes that AI can take repetitive and time-consuming tasks off of employee’s plates and allow them to focus more on strategic and meaningful work. AI can also be used to pull and examine data, allowing for greater efficiency.
Programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT can be great tools for researching and creating first drafts or outlines of projects. However, as far as generative AI being a replacement for human employees, many experts advise leaders to proceed with caution. With how rapidly the programming has expanded in capabilities, the full scope of what AI means for businesses isn’t clear yet.
The Harvard Business Review explains that “it isn’t enough for an AI system to perform a task; the output has to be proven trustworthy, integrated into existing workstreams, and managed for compliance, risk, and regulatory issues”. They go on to say that “historically, AI cycles through phases that involve breakthroughs, surges of funding and fleeting moments of mainstream interest, followed by missed expectations and funding clawbacks”.
However, as mentioned, there are numerous benefits to AI in the workplace:
- AI can enable organizations to focus more on their customers and gain better customer understanding through data. HubSpot writes that “research found a whopping 63% of business professionals feel that AI already helps their employees understand their customers better".
- AI can offer cost savings by automating certain tasks and creating more efficiency.
- AI can improve data analysis and, therefore, lead to better decision-making. Using algorithms, AI can do data analysis that would take a human analyst hours or even days, with the potential for errors or misinterpretation, in minutes or even seconds.
AI can also play a significant role in every part of the employee journey, from recruiting and hiring, to onboarding, examining employee data, and beyond.
The argument that the Harvard Business Review makes is that organizations need to evolve with AI in order to experience the benefits of AI in the workplace.
With AI continuing to rapidly change, organizations should be willing to change and grow as the uses of AI for businesses develop.
