The concept of AI has rapidly increased in popularity and use across society in recent times. Many individuals and industries have different opinions on the use and intentions for this new and expanding technology. The education sector has been particularly concerned about AI due to concerns that the technology can be used for essay writing without much, or any, input from students themselves, thereby putting the rationale for developing research and essay writing skills at risk. Indeed, an essay written by AI tool, GPT-3, and prompted by professor of educational technology at the Open University, Mike Sharples, believes it to be generated to a graduate level. In addition to academia, there has been speculation that AI could replace human personnel in the workplace. Speculation rose as the large digital media company, BuzzFeed, laid off 12% of their employees before going onto announce that they were adopting ChatGPT to produce content for their site such as quizzes and generally making their ‘creative process’ more ‘AI-assisted’'.
Some may be concerned about the applications of AI, but at Bright Horse, we are all about improving the employee experience. A key part of our experience as employees is that which we have with technology, and as Buzzfeed point out in the article above, AI could define a large part of our online experience over the next decade, so what could the possibilities of AI mean for the employee experience?
With the capabilities ChatGPT has displayed thus far, there are ways in which AI may improve the employee experience:
Streamline Workflows
AI can automate many manual or mundane office tasks. I’m sure we’ve heard complaints of spending as much time thinking about work as doing work. With the rise of productivity, teamwork tools, and CRMs, comes the rise in logic-driven workflows that just require setting up. When repetitive work actions are taken out of the equation, employees have more time and focus for important and billable tasks, to become more productive or at least be enabled to do so.
Personalizing communication
When AI is adopted to write content, one way it generates it is to scour any and all relevant data points it has to bring forth what it thinks is most appropriate. With this form of technology, data can be analysed and brought forward for employees to personalise communication and support. This can take various forms, from suggesting email content based on how you want to sound, to retrieving data points from a form submission to create personalized responses for employee inquires. Both approaches have their unique benefit for the employee. Quick support is available to tailor communications and the time taken for an employee to answer emails can be more automated and streamlined. Just like our first example, this in turn provides more time for employees to focus on tasks that really matter as opposed to admin tasks. When we reduce the repetitiveness in our daily tasks down, it may go a long way to preventing brain habituation, thereby encouraging disengagement in employees. If disengagement is a sign of poor experience, working to reduce it will go a long way to encouraging an improved employee experience.
The integration of AI-powered self-driving technology has immense potential to enhance the employee experience by automating routine tasks, reducing human errors, providing advanced business analytics, and promoting a better work-life balance. As AI continues to be a crucial component of digital transformation initiatives, it has the power to revolutionize the workplace and boost employee satisfaction. While it may take time for companies to fully adopt AI across all functions, working with tools to streamline the kinds of tasks that can be automated is a great starting point to improve employee experiences and drive engagement and productivity.
Overall, the use of AI can certainly improve the employee experience in many ways. It can help automate mundane tasks and enable employees to focus on more important and innovative work. However, it is important to keep in mind that the implementation of AI must be done thoughtfully and ethically, taking into consideration potential job loss and the impact on overall company culture. Additionally, as with any new technology, there may be a learning curve for employees. It’s easy to jump onto the adoption of a great new tool, but proper training and support needs to be provided to ensure a smooth transition.