How to Grow Your Business with AI-Empowered Employees

“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace”. - Doug Conant, former Campbell’s Soup CEO

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the workplace at an unprecedented pace. Its impact is evident as we leverage AI to analyze data, manage knowledge bases, generate documentation, detect fraud, diagnose medical conditions, personalize customer experiences, and more. The possibilities are vast and continually expanding.

CIOs are rapidly adopting AI to drive innovation and transformation. According to Foundry’s 2024 CIO Tech Priorities survey, an impressive 89% of CIOs are either researching/testing or already implementing AI technologies - a significant increase from 72% in 2023. Among these, 64% anticipate that AI and machine learning will revolutionize business operations within the next three to five years, a substantial leap from just 39% in 2023. This remarkable shift underscores the growing recognition of AI’s potential to reshape the future of business.

According to Gartner, fewer than 1% of knowledge workers - likely including both you and me - currently utilize AI tools to enhance workflow efficiency. However, this figure is projected to soar to 20% by 2026. Moreover, Generative AI (GenAI) implementations across industries are anticipated to automate 20% of repetitive tasks by 2028, revolutionizing operational processes and redefining productivity standards.

“Turned on people figure out how to beat the competition. Turned off people only complain about being beaten by the competition.” -Ben Simonton, Leadership Skills Advisor/Coach

IT teams embrace AI. Business leaders celebrate it. But what about those of us in the trenches - the hands-on employees? How do we feel about AI?

The answer might hinge on whether you're a digital native. For Gen Z, and younger Millennials using AI often feels second nature. Many learned coding in middle school and seamlessly integrate technology into their personal and professional lives. These digital natives are leading the charge as citizen developers, leveraging low-code/no-code tools and generative AI to automate tasks. They not only boost their job satisfaction but also share their innovations with digitally literate colleagues, such as Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

However, employee adoption and effective use of AI often depend on the company’s approach. The traditional method involves piloting programs to address challenges before a phased rollout. To foster engagement, companies may identify power users - often Gen Z employees -and enlist them as ambassadors to guide their peers through the implementation process. It might feel unusual at first to take guidance from someone who looks like they just stepped out of high school, but their expertise can make a significant difference.

An unconventional approach is the one Boston Consulting Group (BCG) used. Its philosophy was that by giving its 32,000 employees AI tools simultaneously, efficiency and productivity gains would grow organically, thereby driving business growth. Tools included workforce ChatGPT Enterprise, custom-built AI platforms, and a natural language query search for its knowledge base. To win employees over, the program emphasized how fundamental AI is to their effectiveness and career growth.

So, how did that work? According to BCG Global People Chair Alicia Pittman, it worked very well. “We have three primary KPIs when it comes to our GenAI transformation: increase productivity, enhance the quality of our work and insights, and increase employee joy by reducing time spent on toil. We are seeing high impact across each of these, which is exciting for our people, for our clients, and therefore for our business.”

BCG employees took AI into their own hands, creating thousands of custom chatbots and automated tools, which they shared with colleagues. By embracing their creativity, they not only increased their productivity and job satisfaction but also enhanced that of their peers. If someone shared an AI app with me that automatically handled my expense reports, I’d be buying them coffee for a long time to come.

Taking the measured, verified, and slow approach may cost you. It’s not innovation if it is tried, tested, verified, and has a known ROI; it’s catching up to the competition already enjoying those value benefits.

"Happy employees ensure happy customers. Happy customers ensure happy shareholders - in that order." – Simon Sinek, Author and Speaker

This brings me to the rapidly growing area of natural language processing for both external customers and internal users.

For the most part, people in the workplace are smitten with AI. ChatGPT had one million users in its first five days. AI voice assistants are now a part of our daily lives, with half of us using mobile voice searches every day. How many of you have Alexa sitting on the shelf, waiting for a command?

In 2023, less than 1% of GenAI solutions were multimodal (voice, video, audio, text). That number is expected to increase to 60% by 2026. People typically speak 100 words a minute but type only 40 words per minute on average. Based on that alone, conversational AI engagement can deliver a 150% improvement in communicating with your data.

The use cases and efficiencies of multimodal AI are endless, particularly in employee engagement and support. Employees can ask the company chatbot, copilot, or agent to reset passwords, request PTO, search documents, generate proposals from a winning proposal library, and more. GenAI will become a 24/7 employee support desk beyond IT, extending into all areas of employee support, from ordering supplies to planning travel and optimizing workflows.

In backend applications, AI boosts productivity by automating mundane, routine tasks. Who wants to do expense reports or time cards? I don’t. GenAI can use optical character recognition (OCR) to identify receipts or analyze your Outlook work calendar to generate them for you. I can’t wait to join the 20% of workers using AI by 2026 to streamline workflows and eliminate these tedious tasks.

Companies are seeing real, meaningful impacts from GenAI. In one analysis of more than 200 enterprises, network access issues were resolved in approximately two hours for companies embracing AI, compared to 12 hours for average companies. Two hours is frustrating enough, but waiting 12 hours for network access would make me a very unhappy camper, and everyone would hear about it.

Employees like AI. They’re more engaged and happier with their jobs when empowered to solve problems themselves. For instance, instead of waiting hours for network access to be reset - and fuming about it the whole time - employees can resolve the issue in minutes via a chatbot. They can also eliminate hours spent on repetitive tasks by adopting applications developed by co-workers to automate those processes. These saved minutes and hours add up to happier employees. And as we all know, happy employees grow businesses.

Think of investing in AI as an investment in your workforce first and your business second. Empowering employees to innovate and solve problems with AI makes work more fulfilling and delivers organic productivity gains for employers. In a recent AI Pulse Survey of companies that invested in AI, 74% reported a positive ROI on employee productivity, 77% on operational efficiencies, and 72% on customer satisfaction.

That sounds like a win-win for everyone.

Sr Director, Modern Workplace Solutions

Brian Marranzini is a seasoned expert in Digital Workplace Services. He is currently serving as a Senior Director at Black Box. With a robust background in AI, Automation, Mobile, Virtual, Cloud, BYOD, and Modern Workplace technologies, Brian is dedicated to driving innovation and enhancing the employee experience. Brian has more than 25 years of experience, 12 at Microsoft, and another 12+ at Dell and NTT Data through the acquisition of Dell Services.