The debate about artificial intelligence (AI) typically revolves around its economic impact: Will it create more jobs than it destroys? How will it disrupt industries and businesses? Less frequently discussed is the impact that AI may have on the intellectual diversity within an organization, human-machine collaboration in the workplace and firm culture.

In a sweeping survey¹ involving more than 120 C-suite business leaders, Tata Communications (a global digital infrastructure services provider) unearthed four primary areas where AI may positively impact the future of work and workers.

Four Themes Reshaping Work

Theme One—As technology makes life more fluid, workers (and companies) will need to become more flexible. Employees will need to be open to a lifelong series of new skill acquisition to remain valuable and relevant, while companies may need to redefine its view of model job candidates, placing less emphasis on how a current skillset fits a particular role and more on a candidate’s ability to adapt to changing organizational needs.

Theme Two—AI can empower employees to become more agile and curious. As AI frees up employees’ time, the opportunity is created to become more experimental, provided the company culture supports it. This free time further lends itself to increased interaction with peers, leading to stronger teams and higher job satisfaction, as well as the room to be more creative.

Theme Three—AI can facilitate greater collaboration. Project management, decision-making and data collection may be improved through AI, increasing the effectiveness and productivity of teams. As an example, for global organizations, real-time language translation can overcome one of the biggest obstacles to effective collaboration among worldwide colleagues and customers.

Theme Four—AI can foster cognitive diversity in an organization. Organizations that harbor a rich vein of cognitive diversity (i.e., a workforce of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences) are generally rewarded with more creative and profitable outcomes.

AI can enhance such cognitive diversity by recommending individuals to copy on communications who might add a different perspective to the challenges of a particular issue or project. Taking it one step further, AI could be used to break down organizational silos and solicit input from others in the organization outside the small circle of those directly involved with and responsible for an organizational deliverable.

Source(s):

1. https://www.tatacommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Report_Cognitive-Diversity_AI-and-The-Future-of-Work.pdf

See referenced disclosure (2) at https://blog-dev.americanportfolios.com/disclosures/