By Dr. Antarpreet Singh
The business landscape, in the last few years has changed dramatically. Disruptions brought in by intelligent digital technologies coupled with Covid19-led transformation of workplaces, have induced new workstyles, characterised by an active Employee-AI collaboration. This has caused a massive change in the way businesses operate today. The rapid integration and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in business ecosystems presents great opportunities for business leaders to innovate, become competitive, and gain market power. Companies across various industry segments are beginning to leverage AI and unlock new opportunities to create superior business value. At the same time, AI adoption in business presents several formidable challenges and risks, that must be understood by business leaders and addressed effectively through comprehensive and holistic AI adoption strategies.
The global AI market was valued at US dollars 136 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow exponentially to reach USD 1.8 trillion by 2030 – an astonishing CAGR of 35.6%. While AI is anticipated to deskill various jobs (fully/partially), it is also expected to create 97 million new job roles by 2025. Adoption of AI in businesses is expected to contribute over USD15 trillion to the global economy by 2030, facilitating a global GDP growth of over 14%.
AI has tremendous potential to increase productivity by automating routine tasks. Harmonious Employee–AI collaboration entails selective deskilling of tasks and jobs that were previously in the sole domain of humans. The automation–augmentation dynamics have a profound impact on the ‘digital-age job designs’ that have the potential to significantly boost organisational performance. While automation refers to the complete deskilling of a task, process, or even a job – augmentation means judicious allocation among employees and AI. Employees retain jobs and processes that require creativity, ingenuity, deep thinking, empathy, and human touch, whereas AI gets functions that are repetitive, require massive computations – at a great speed. AI also helps analyse business data, providing predictive and prescriptive insights to managers, enabling them to make data-driven decisions.
In terms of customer experience, AI boosts satisfaction by offering personalised recommendations, that enhance the shopping experience of customers on digital commerce platforms. AI also drives innovation by enabling the development of new products, services, and business models, thereby generating fresh revenue streams. Additionally, in risk management, AI plays a crucial role by identifying and mitigating business risks, such as detecting frauds in real time. Also, AI optimises supply chains by predicting demand accurately and efficiently managing inventory, leading to greater efficiency and reduced costs, as demonstrated by major e-commerce players across the globe. With its vast potential, AI presents promising business opportunities and at the same time significant challenges.
We must understand that AI led digital transformation in an organisation is not merely a technological initiative – it is a massive change phenomenon that requires cultural transformation. A digital culture where humans and AI co-exist, collaborate, and work harmoniously. In addition, AI adoption requires a clear vision by the business leaders and a future-ready business model. While AI possesses massive potential to enhance business performance thereby creating superior business value, the deskilling fears due to AI adoption, have the potential to induce a lot of anxiety among employees and lower their morale. In addition to what is termed as ‘Technology induced Anxiety”, employees complain of a lack of control over their jobs as well as the absence of human touch at the workplace. Organisations must formulate AI Ethics guidelines and embrace a self-regulation method for the adoption of AI. This will help reduce the anxiety and fear of AI among employees. The humanised AI (using AI with a human touch and respecting the dignity and privacy of employees) will help build a work environment where employees and AI can co-exist and collaborate harmoniously. An organisation must also nurture a strong AI Ethics governance structure so that leaders can keep a close eye on AI algorithms, the algorithmic distribution in the organisation and instances (if any) of biased recommendations/outcomes (algorithmic bias).
Adoption and implementation of AI requires accessing large data sets (customers, employees, partners and overall markets), which raises serious privacy and security concerns. To protect sensitive information and maintain the trust of customers, employees, partners, as well as the general market, businesses must comply with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Additionally, the high demand for AI talent has created significant skill gaps, making it challenging for businesses to find employees with well-rounded digital skills. To build internal expertise in AI, organisations need to invest in upskilling employees. It’s a myth that only few experts dealing with digital technologies need to have a strong AI related skillset. Everyone in the organisation including the CEO must have adequate knowledge and digital skills to collaborate with AI, at a functional level.
Several experts across the globe are of the view that business leaders must promote harmonious Employee-AI collaboration rather than thinking of an “Either-Or” solution. Augmentation of employees’ abilities with the power of AI is the right way forward. AI adoption in business offers immense opportunities for business growth. At the same time adoption is complex and requires skillful digital leadership to leverage the benefits of AI while mitigating the challenges. Employees must keep pace with fast changing AI technology, through continuous upskilling initiatives. Collaboration of human intelligence with artificial intelligence requires a well-structured learning and development ecosystem so that employees are equipped with the necessary digital skills to learn and leverage AI effectively. In addition, business leaders must promote new generation job designs that help employees to augment their abilities with the power of AI. At the same time, there is a sharp focus on AI ethics.
(The author is Dr. Antarpreet Singh, Director (Academics), WILL Education, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
