Cubicles, workstations, and paper reports are fading from memory – the workplace is going through constant and rapid evolution. A new era of open environments, tele-commuting, and digital workspaces has replaced the analog office setting.
Moving forward, digital workflow transformation will have even farther-reaching effects on organizations and employees. Systems, tools, apps, and processes are being digitized and migrated to the cloud. This cloud-enabled evolution will in turn be impacted significantly by artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
The areas in specific where workflows and AI are intersecting and creating novel enterprise experiences include:
Automation
Productivity
Collaboration
Knowledge Sharing
Here’s a primer for business leaders on the AI-enhanced future of their employees’ workplace experiences.
Employees at most companies owe a lot to their IT departments. From service requests to new accounts, permissions, bug fixes, and pre-automated IT services, teams have resolved issues using a manual ticket assignment system. The manual workflow can take anywhere between several hours to a few days to complete.
When a company applies AI-aided automation to their workflows, the service desk becomes a sort of triage center. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can take over, prioritizing, categorizing, and resolving requests. RPA reduces the workflow timeframes by automating repetitive, labor-intensive tasks, and allows employees to fulfill their own requests without disruption to underlying systems.
AI has also been smoothly integrated into recruiting, changing the methods of hiring and retaining talent. It streamlines processes by:
Filtering resumes
Interacting with candidates
Filling the recruitment pipeline with the best people
Innovators in the areas of AI-aided automation include Workato and UiPath, which creates RPA-enabled platforms to handle service requests, and HireVue, which helps organizations like Singapore Airlines and Intel to source and interview candidates.
Early AI adopters are expecting a 40% increase in productivity and revenue this year, which according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) could create 58 million new jobs by 2022.
AI-savvy companies are reassigning important but mundane tasks by using smart tools like sales chatbots. By integrating with AI solutions such as Salesforce Einstein, a company can plug in their data and receive a sales model that is then tailored to their organization.
What’s more, the Einstein platform takes care of monitoring duties, so the sales teams can focus on more complex issues.
An AI-enabled workforce will pave the way for human-machine collaboration, which according to the Harvard Business Review will increase productivity and revenue by 38%.
Google already uses AI in their search algorithms for natural language processing and better understanding of user-intent. This same technology makes it easier for humans in large organizations to quickly find and filter information. Intranets will eventually conduct knowledge-sharing through active AI interfaces.
The Google Enterprise suite features a host of cloud services encompassing productivity, conferencing, and meeting apps – all of which have AI-embedded features. These features minimize “context switching,” making the integrations between various app contexts seamless and relevant.
AI is going to keep improving our knowledge bases. Portals, intranets, and hubs will all include automated capabilities that piece together context and variables to make actionable and pertinent suggestions. It will be like having your own personal assistant, right at your fingertips.
Imagine that you’re a manager of a small team, logging into your portal to start your day. AI can tailor your intranet experience so that you see a personalized dashboard of PTO requests, customized project widgets, and your own workday information.
By taking AI-integration to the next level, the platform can even show you how a PTO request might impact the timeline of a project on your dashboard. It could suggest how to optimize your project workflow, leverage other resources, along with also approving regular expenses and flagging irregularities.
Microsoft’s OneDrive and SharePoint are well-known examples of AI-integrated enterprise software, with Microsoft AI even being able to transcribe video and audio meetings.
Despite the enormous, visible impact AI is having on workflows, processes and business models, many companies have yet to embrace this digital transformation.
How do you know if your business is ready to level up? The answer is metrics. Frameworks and models offered by Forrester and Microsoft can assess a company’s AI maturity and readiness. To guide them on their journey, many companies turn to digital transformation specialists.
At Trianz, we are dedicated to helping you make that AI-first digital transformation. Starting with a readiness assessment, our specialists design a strategy and execution plan specific to your organization and its goals. We can help you create state-of-the-art AI-integrated workflows, intranet portals, and digital experiences that will give time back to your employees and help them focus on their professional passions.
Presented here were some examples of first-wave AI technologies that have made major impacts on business process and delivery. Who knows how the next wave of AI modernization will change industries? It’s an exciting prospect that doesn’t need to feel overwhelming.
Contact a transformation specialist at Trianz for a free consultation, and get your journey started.
References
WEF (World Economic Forum) 2018 Future of Jobs Report
Harvard Business Review “collaborative intelligence with AI and Humans”
https://hbr.org/2018/07/collaborative-intelligence-humans-and-ai-are-joining-forces
