Generation Digital Blog

The Impact of AI on digital transformation and the workplace

Written by Graham Mackay | 20-May-2019 06:00:00

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already apparent to most of us in a consumer context and we are familiar with the names Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Cortana because these helpful voices play a useful role in our personal lives. Now, we are seeing AI having a big impact in the modern workplace as organisations start to adopt and integrate workplace collaboration tools with AI and ‘bots’.

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This is part of a larger trend we see where large organisations are adopting collaboration tools that were originally developed for consumers e.g. Google and Workplace by Facebook, but are now firmly focussed on the enterprise.

AI and chatbots are being incorporated in these offerings to improve workflows and to support conversational experiences, for example, being a user friendly and intuitive way to access information in ugly ‘systems of record’ (think HR, ERP, CRM, Finance systems).

Digital workplace technologies and digital transformation strategies are making organisations more conversational and smarter. With the growing popularity of AI and AI-powered products, some organisations have started integrating it in their workplace to automate their tasks and work ‘smarter’ and improve decision making. For example, AI can assist employees by automating simple, time-consuming tasks, like scheduling meetings, creating help desk tickets and booking conference rooms (freeing up their time for more strategic and impactful work).

It can support users with ‘just in time’ training on new technology, tools or processes at exactly the time when they need it. We work closely with the Workplace by Facebook team who use AI and Bots to support their recruitment process – managing interview bookings and candidate feedback. We work with customers who use AI to help manage employee engagement.

In conclusion, we are really positive about the impact of AI and Bots on workplace collaboration tools and digital transformation. It creates another opportunity for the industry to improve workplace collaboration.

The important thing is to remember to put the humans at the centre of any AI / Bot related projects, and make sure any AI investments are intuitive and integrated with the existing tools.