As AI goes everywhere, here is how you must frame opportunities and risks
The impacts of AI on how people work with it need to be considered with technical but also human-centric thinking
AI is an omnipresent phenomenon that impacts (and potentially shatters to smithereens) many of the ways in which we live and work. Such is the importance and wide-ranging nature of the changes we are starting to see that the AI wave can appear overwhelming and scary. But in a new report, the business technology analyst IDC describes this multifaceted shift as “AI Everywhere” and does a good job in describing how we can expect the uber trend of AI to play out. In this article I want to break out some of these shifts and, I hope, take away some of the hype, jargon and frothiness that masks what is really occurring.
For IT leaders, AI will be ubiquitous so treat it with change management thinking. By 2028, IDC says, 80% of CIOs will implement organisational changes to apply AI optimally across productivity, automation and analytics. As with any change on a major scale, there will be notable risks as well as major opportunities. Therefore, for optimal integration of AI, leaders will need to view AI as a strategic agent of change. They will need to plan carefully and holistically for business and human impacts rather than seeing it as a series of tools that can be sprinkled usefully into current infrastructure.
Work will never look the same. Such is the power of AI that the shift towards “AI Everywhere” will mean rapid changes in how people work, the tasks they complete, management structures, and, indeed, even the role played by organisational employment within society as a whole.
New roles and KPIs will apply. To dig deeper, consider the following ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ examples. In traditional work environments, we are used to seeing junior workers taking on basic tasks and “learning on the job”. Soon, much of that work will be offloaded to bots and agents. Today, workers are often stymied by working in functional silos but soon AI frameworks will intelligently connect what were disparate processes. Today, C-suite executives rely on people reporting into them to view performance indicators but soon dashboards will provide an “at a glance” cockpit view across operations lines. Today, we rank staff based on their ability to handle task volumes efficiently and at speed but soon those indicators won’t be useful guides and other success factors such as time to insight or understanding scope for innovation will be more prized.
AI will move from tactical applications to strategic applications. We will see short-term (inside 12 months) AI results such as being able to predict customer behaviour better or ways to improve hiring processes. But in the longer team (up to five years), winners in deploying AI optimally will be those organisations that can address bigger issues such as addressing sustainability mandates, revamping staff continuous improvement journeys and dynamic supply-chain optimisation.
Expect human challenges. AI will have massive impact on “the human factor” as people struggle to redefine their value to organisations in the face of changes outlined above. Companies will need strategies to address human skills shortages and address widespread fear of layoffs and role changes.
The rise of the AI orchestrator. Almost four in five (78%) of US and Europeans expect some or even most of their current tasks to be offloaded to AI over the next two years. People will need to become facilitators and orchestrators of their AI-infused capabilities, understanding where best to apply AI and attendant risk factors such as the need for data governance. Today, 43% of US and European workers don’t trust employers to handle data that touches AI appropriately. New leaders will be those that build this into their thinking and can provide guidance and reassurance.
Staff will want more from employers. At a time of rapid change, leaders will be asked by staff to help them upskill and they will want more time and budget for training, and more freedom to choose additional skills. This will have benefits for companies in that staff being given the right training for an agent technology such Microsoft Copilot won’t just use it tactically as an adjunct to old habits. Being human-centric and involving people in how changes are made will be key.
If we respect and understand the power of AI and consider it as a strategic rather than minor or incremental change to ‘business as usual’, then we will have a greater scope to address opportunities and mitigate risks. In what will be an “AI Everywhere” world, those leaders that begin to consider these changes in the round will be best placed to succeed.
Claus Jepsen is chief product and technology officer at Unit4