AI is transforming the workplace as we know it today. Some of the ways in which this is happening can't be overlooked. You can learn more about them here.

Some business analysts believe that artificial intelligence (AI) is already influencing how we conduct business today. In fact, one survey suggests that 84% of businesses believe AI will help them be more competitive. Another 83% of businesses think AI should be one of the business’ top priorities today. This means that only about 20% of today’s businesses don’t believe AI is advantageous to them.

AI is in the Workplace Already

The use of AI has led to an improvement in efficiency and productivity. Things like voice AI-powered phone systems have saved businesses a lot of time by automating the processes. Innovation Enterprise says these are things we can’t afford to overlook when we glance around and see that AI is already at work in our workplaces today. Commercial enterprises are using it to streamline their workflows and automate simple tasks. If this continues, we’ll see some definite changes happening in our business world that will revolutionize it. MIT Sloan Management Review conducted a study indicating that one the biggest ways we’ll see this happen is as the business world experiences increased adaptation to automation.

About 23% of businesses say they’re already using AI in this way today. Another 23% said they’re either testing or initiating AI processes. This means that only about 22% of businesses aren’t even thinking about AI, but they’re mainly in the handicraft sectors where there’s not much use for automation anyway.

What the Workplace of the Future will Look Like Thanks to AI

IT Proportal says although many businesses have already harnessed AI’s power, in 5 – 10 years we’ll see a huge increase in AI in the workplace as those businesses that rely heavily on paper and long procedures start to see how AI improves their time management and bottom line. As businesses harness the power of AI software they’ll eventually move towards having AI complete everything for them. As you might imagine, this will free up a lot of time that your employees can spend on more complex parts of their jobs that require human intuition and creativity.

This improved efficiency will be seen across all industries including insurance, law, financial services, and conveyancing. These are the industries that will see the biggest benefits from harnessing the power of AI. This is especially great for the financial industry that’s typically plagued with inefficiencies, fraud, and cybercrimes. By simply integrating AI into old legacy systems these companies can rest assured that they’re regulation compliant, protected from fraud, innovating, and having their transactions approved.

By wholeheartedly embracing AI, companies can rest assured that human judgment remains at the core of all their business output. As AI grows more productive, their employees will still save time and money because they won’t waste these precious resources on administrative tasks. Instead, AI will do all the heavy lifting while humans simply make sure that standards are continuously met, the right ethical decisions are made in each circumstance, and then spend the remainder of their time exploring new business initiatives.

The companies who remain highly competitive here will also attract the top talent by starting to use AI now. This is why you need to commission a few employees to review emerging AI frameworks and decide what will work best for your business. By investing time now you’ll save both time and money later because you won’t need to spend them on manual administrative tasks. Failure to understand this will cause you to lose out to your competitors.  

What This Means for Your Employees

Business News Daily says one daunting question accompanying the use of AI today is whether machines will force humans out of their jobs. Undoubtedly, AI will change the workforce as we know it today, but by how much is something that’s still being hotly debated. One of the main benefits here is that your business can create a knowledge-based economy and leverage it to create better automation so your employees can achieve a better work/life balance.

So, instead of worrying about AI and robots replacing your job, you should be more concerned about algorithms replacing white-collar jobs (e.g. business analysts, hedge fund managers, lawyers). Some even say that this shift is likely to cause the economy to add jobs that will help facilitate this transition. In this way, it’s more likely that AI will create more wealth than it destroys. The changes that occur will be subliminally felt, instead of being over. Where you’ll notice it most is in the fragmenting of long-standing workflows.

This will definitely be different than it was in the past when we were transitioning from farming to manufacturing to services. Now that industry has been completely robotized we’re seeing that automation makes more sense economically. Examples of this include self-driving trucks and AI concierges (e.g. Siri, Cortana). As these technologies continue to improve, they’ll become more widely used, which will, in turn, possibly eliminate as many as 8 million jobs just in the U.S. When we start to see these jobs “disappearing,” it’s important to ask ourselves what we’re doing to make our businesses more productive.

Additionally, you need to consider how you define productivity and what it really means. It’s important for us to confront this changing reality and question society's underlying assumptions there. This is something we really must take some time to think about so we have a clear understanding of what makes us productive and how valuable this is for people in our society. It’s important for business owners to have this debate soon since technology isn’t going to wait for us.

Regardless of how the future looks, it’s upon us now and AI is definitely going to be a part of it. As technology continues to develop, the world will watch as new startups use AI for numerous business applications and consumer purposes. What jobs are displaced by this improving technology will certainly be replaced by the creation of entirely new ones. AI, coupled with the internet of things (IoT), will dramatically remake our economy, but nobody knows how yet.