The adoption of artificial intelligence in businesses is still at an infancy stage although it is growing notably fast. In 2020, Gartner reported that in that there are companies where AI-related products account for more than 20% of earnings before interest and tax. Still, less than 20% of all companies worldwide can claim to have implemented artificial intelligence at scale. This will not remain static, but important conversations need to happen about some of the impediments to wider adoption.
AI is not a Cure for Everything.
Indeed artificial intelligence has a wide range of applications, from healthcare and research to finance and fraud detection. However, it’s certainly not a panacea for all the problems that organizations face today. Instead, organizations need to have a clear picture of AI solution and their intended purpose. It must be tied to a quantifiable return on investment. For instance, the use of AI technology to detect potentially fraudulent activity on credit cards is supposed to improve security and the overall customer confidence of consumers on the robustness of the company’s safeguards. However, if the technology is still low on accuracy, it could become an impediment to customer experience if it frequently blocks users from using their cards.
The Value of Advocacy and the Network Effect
Companies must also understand that AI needs to be introduced methodically as any other change would. Employees need to understand and also see how AI could improve their work. Building a proof of concept is important to get stakeholders, which employees are, onside. As they see these proofs, they will spark conversations that eventually lead to acceptance.
Conversations on AI adoption need to happen in a non-technical language so that everyone understands what it can help accomplish. The focus needs to be on the utility rather than the complex technology behind it.
What AI can Do Four Your Workforce
In order to draw support for AI technologies at your company, the employees, as stakeholders should understand the benefits such technologies bring.
Efficiency Through Automation
As a company, you must stress the need to free employees from repetitive tasks that require little mental effort. Proactive organizations are retraining employees for other tasks, thus combating the wrong narrative that AI is meant to eliminate people from the workforce. Instead, AI is helping create new roles and new tools to complete repetitive tasks faster and more accurately.
Enhancing Customer Service
Customer-facing staff must appreciate the role which AI-built solutions have changed the face of customer-service departments. Not every ticket needs to reach human customer service personnel. Instead, chatbots with natural-language processing ability can decipher customer problems and supply a quick answer if possible. This option also eliminates long wait times to get through to a customer care agent via phone or for an email to be answered. If a bot cannot solve a customer’s problem, it can set up a ticket with a summary of information gathered from that client.
Improving Customer Experience
It may not seem obvious but better customer experiences play a role in having a more fulfilled workforce. A good scenario is when AI is used to make CRM software more powerful by being able to predict customer actions and take decisive actions. In addition, being able to take real-time actions in response to customers’ browsing behavior on websites massively impacts revenue generation. These tools make employees better at their job and improve their appraisal results.
Recruitment using AI
The recruitment and onboarding processes in companies have gained massively from the use of artificial intelligence. Companies today can rely on solutions such as Textron to develop more comprehensive job descriptions and specifications for the roles they are hiring for. Today, most companies also such AI to sift through hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications they receive whenever they post a job. This adds speed and objectivity to the process and helps fill up roles with the right profile candidates.
The Ethics Conversation
Even as you enumerate the many benefits that AI can deliver to your company, you will not avoid the ethics conversation. Employees may have questions about such things as their privacy being invaded by AI solutions meant to improve their productivity. There are organizations where companies gather data on how employees use their computers and various apps to help gain insights on productivity. While this might be well-meaning and intended to find sources of productivity loss, it may feel intrusive for employees.
Similarly, customers may have concerns about the data gathered by the company to power AI models meant to improve their customers’ experience.
To instill confidence, your company should put together a working -group to drive AI ethics. Such a team needs people with a combination of technical skills, experience, legal knowledge, and business sense. Their output should be the company’s ethical standard when it comes to the deployment of AI technology. They should also assess where the organization’s standards are currently and how far it falls short of the set standards. Finally, they should operationalize a plan to ensure adherence to those standards.
Investing in Training
As pointed out, the wider adoption of artificial intelligence will create a talent gap that requires investment in training. Companies cannot solely rely on recruiting already trained talent. They must invest in training existing staff even as they also invest in the AI tools built and sold by vendors. The availing of training will send a positive message to employees that the organization is not only interested in adopting AI but also in helping them upskill. Machine learning and AI engineers are no doubt some of the most sought-after recruits in the world today.
Transcendent Software
If your company wants to have a conversation about what AI technology can help improve your operations, you can speak to us. At Transcendent Software, we have been at the forefront in helping build and deploy AI and machine-learning solutions in numerous industries. We have tens of case studies documented on AI driving value for clients. Schedule a call with us here.