6 Ways Leaders Are Using AI To Drive Innovation In The Workplace

AI is being adopted everywhere at breakneck pace, and the fearsome reality for business leaders is that if processes and policies are not established to ensure governance and ethical usage, this emerging technology could do more harm than good in the corporate world. Tech titans are keenly aware of this, as is evident in the AI Safety Summit last week that saw business moguls such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla’s Elon Musk discuss potential governance arrangements with US senators.

At the same time, a Microsoft survey indicates that 49% of employees worry about losing their jobs due to the AI boom.

Thankfully, there are some measures that can be put into place in the meantime, which will ensure AI fosters innovation and drives profits while enabling people to do their best work, instead of substituting talent or compromising ethics.

Tim Shi, co-founder and chief technology officer of Cresta, offers two recommendations for implementing AI in the workplace in a way that supports these values:

Automate repetitive tasks

“A fundamental part of deploying AI technology is the instant productivity that an organization can gain. Instead of consuming valuable human time, energy, and resources on repetitive tasks, a company can now hand these non-value-add – but incredibly necessary – tasks to AI to augment their very skilled and capable workers. This will inevitably lead to drastic changes in productivity, allowing employees to do more strategic work in less time and to focus on projects that will deliver value.”

Think augmentation—not replacement

Shi is keen to stress that augmentation, not replacement, is the way forward:

“When businesses use AI to augment human work, rather than replacing human workers, they’re able to utilize generative AI in a way that can transform their businesses. In a considerable number of support interactions, AI chatbots or virtual agents will conduct tasks that humans do today. However, AI is not here to replace all humans – engaging with customers requires empathetic, emotive responses and the ability to navigate nuanced dialogue – something only humans can do effectively.

“AI can benefit customer support and augment workers by delivering real-time intelligence and coaching to allow for more productive conversations. Implementing generative AI will drastically improve performance, which in turn will drive productivity, efficiency, and boost the bottom line.”

Red Door’s senior principal of information technology, Dennis Gonzales, highlighted an example of augmentation, noting how integrating generative AI into HR processes has spearheaded productivity and team efficiency at Red Door:

“We deployed our own prototype chatbot ‘CMore’ to serve as a friendly resource to our internal teams. It learned our employee handbook, benefits information, security system procedures, referral policy and education assistance policy to fine tune the employee experience. Since its launch earlier this quarter, CMore has already saved us nearly 100 hours of admin work to-date. It’s helped make curiosity a strength, narrowing the gap of ‘I don’t know what I don’t know,’ to sharing information on-demand. What started as a prototype is now paying off as an artificial investment to buy back time for the brilliant minds at the agency to thrive.”

Adopt “AI everywhere” mindset through change management

Todd Pingaro, partner at Mckinsey & Company, recommends leaders use a three-pronged approach to enabling change in their organizations to effectively roll out AI:

For example, a leading financial services organization began by setting up centers of enablement to adopt and apply the rapidly changing set of data and technology solutions, Pingaro explains. “They then launched dedicated learning programs ranging from base education for their entire team, to expert curriculums for employees who seek to pivot their specialty to AI. They also adopted an open innovation approach where they partnered with academia, start-ups and others to tap into a vast network of insight.”

Michael McReady, founder and managing partner at McReady Law, shares how he uses AI to improve efficiency:

“At our law firm, we are currently introducing, training, and testing out a few AI-driven devices. As we continue to test and use these products within a closed data set, we fully expect AI to improve the overall day-to-day management processes within our practice. For example, we are using it for office policies and procedure documents, creating legal briefs, social media content ideation, and content recall for our customer service and in-take teams.”

Make confident decisions on future market trends

“Unlike traditional methods that rely on historical sales data, which can become outdated and less relevant for retailers and brands looking 6-12 months ahead in product design and development, our approach is distinctly forward-looking,” says Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight.

“By harnessing AI-driven predictive analytics, we’ve transitioned from subjective assertions such as ‘I think’ or ‘I feel’ in decision-making forums, to more data-driven statements such as ‘based on real-time customer insights, we recommend…’. This proactive approach not only enhances the accuracy of our predictions but also ensures that our insights are timely and relevant for the ever-evolving retail landscape.

As a result, retailers and brands partnering with First Insight have witnessed improvements in product success rates by 50-80%, a surge in sales and margins by 4-10%, and a commendable reduction in inventories ranging from 5-18%.”

Put humans at the center

Bess Healy, Synchrony’s SVP and chief information officer, believes that employees should always remain in charge of collaborations, responsible for accuracy and quality. “Invest in training for necessary tech skills,” Healy advises, “and promote a culture of lifelong learning to sustain an AI-powered workforce. Prioritize the human side of innovation alongside technology.”

Establish responsible AI governance

Healy created an internal AI advisory group to ensure everyone within the organization was on the same page. “Form cross-functional teams to set internal standards,” she cautions. “Guard against bias, and promote fairness and transparency in AI decisions. Engage in public-private partnerships to ensure safe and secure AI utilization.”

In a nutshell, AI is a powerful resource that can be wielded by managers and leaders to make their employees’ work more enjoyable, freeing them up for creative pursuits, “humanized” work, and arming them with real-time market insights for confident decision-making that will yield profits. At the same time, while advocating for AI usage, put your people first, consult them, and seek as far as possible to complement their work, not take it away. This gives you competitive advantage.

As Josh Wilson, 28-year-old CEO and founder of Particl rightly noted: “Leverage AI tools that inform your most important strategic decisions with real-time data. Companies must invest in AI software in order to remain innovative on the inside and competitive on the outside.”