Illustration by: iStock.com/sesame
Perhaps more than any other recent development in the tech world, the concept of artificial intelligence — technology that can perform tasks typically done by humans — elicits strong emotional responses, from exhilaration to fear and everything in between. That can limit effective use of AI tools.
The issue isn’t how you feel about AI, it’s the fact that you’re associating emotions with it. So if you’re a leader who wants to introduce or expand the use of AI in your organization, whether it’s to compose emails, analyze data, or generate images for a marketing campaign, what’s the best way to apply it in your business and to model a supportive, non-emotional approach for employees?
Focus on the Tasks AI Can Do
“When people hear AI, their brains kind of shut down,” says Kuang Xu in an episode of the If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society podcast. Kuang is an associate professor of Operations, Information & Technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a teacher in Executive Education programs. Your emotional reactions — good or bad — can confuse you and hamper your ability to make the best decisions, he explains.
Instead of fixating on the challenges or opportunities AI might bring, Kuang suggests you focus on the tasks AI tools can help you accomplish and on harnessing its ability to organize and provide data — the data you need to make informed decisions. “At the moment,” he points out, “AI is all about information. At the end of the day, you have to take that information and do something with it.”
Kuang acknowledges that unlike technologies with defined usages or capabilities, AI is surrounded by a lot of uncertainty. That can be stressful. But understanding how a specific AI tool works — for instance, how a few lines of code can direct a large language model to create a movie recommendation engine — can relieve your anxiety. It establishes a boundary around what can seem like an overwhelming, boundaryless machine and makes it controllable. Additionally, you should make it clear to the team where and how they might benefit from using AI in their work, and be ready to help them learn more.
Strategic Use of AI Yields the Highest Rewards
Kuang emphasizes that successful use of AI is determined less by how much your company invests in the technology and more by how strategically you’re implementing it. “It’s much less about any of the machine learning that’s involved, it’s really knowing how to insert AI in the right process,” he says.
For instance, AI has been very effective in the field of radiology — not to replace radiologists as some initially thought it might — but to supplement human reviews. Since AI can analyze images more quickly than humans, scans with suspicious findings can be moved to the front of the line. Radiologists still read and interpret all of the images, but at-risk patients can be prioritized.
This illustrates what Kuang describes as a kind of 80/20 model. Just like a human intern, who might be able to accomplish 80 percent of a given task but needs help with the remaining 20 percent, AI can do a lot. But just as an intern’s supervisor needs to check and finish the higher-level work, humans also need to process AI’s work. To succeed, you should rely on uniquely human capabilities where they’re most beneficial, such as in decision-making and higher-level strategic planning and analysis.
Implement AI Realistically
You might be tempted to make a big investment in an AI transformation in order to stay competitive or respond to pressure from shareholders or customers. But Kuang recommends you pause and ask yourself, “What decision can I change if I have the information AI can provide?”
It might not be as much as you would think. Maybe procurement contracts have already been negotiated, and pricing is set for the foreseeable future. This is where Kuang suggests thinking about a different kind of 80/20 model: around 80 percent of what you would like to use AI to change won’t be possible for a variety of reasons, such as regulations or existing legal contracts. And of the 20 percent that’s left, about half won’t make a significant difference if you do. It’s that remaining 10 percent — in this case it might be advertising — where you should focus your efforts, and where enlisting the help of AI will achieve the most valuable results.
Putting Insights into Action
The rapid pace of development in the field of AI is overwhelming at times, but remember that you’re in control of how and when you implement any digital transformation in your business. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:
- If you’re just beginning to implement AI, start small. Use it to summarize meeting notes, create an initial draft of a newsletter or other communication, or spark ideas during a brainstorming session.
- Reduce stress and emotions around AI by creating boundaries. Help your team understand what AI can and cannot do and what the technology behind certain applications is.
- Invest in AI where it can make a difference, not for processes that can’t be changed or where it won’t have an impact.
- Carefully consider how to integrate AI and the uniquely human capabilities of employees to amplify the team’s ability to do their best work.
