Beth
White
Published on
June 7, 2022
It is essential to use a people-oriented approach to implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to keep human emotions and improvements in work efficiencies front and center during the change. A people-centric approach involves the impacted employees and customers in the design of automating and digitizing workflows and processes.
AI strategies fail when the people impacted by the changes are not included in the processes or planning. Their fear of the change and the consequences for them grows. Then they actively oppose and reject the AI implementation or simply let it fail from inaction.
It is critical to get AI implementation right. According to NewVantage Partners executive survey, 90 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are investing in AI and increasing those investments. And 92 percent are reporting measurable business benefits from their current AI use.
Still, only 26 percent of companies say their AI initiatives have actually moved into widespread production. Why? The company’s culture rejects the change. Executives say culture is the greatest impediment to AI success, 11 times more than technology limitations, according to the NewVantage Partners executive survey. And the cultural challenges have actually gotten worse, with 92% of executives citing cultural factors this year vs. 81% in 2018.
Other research has also established a strong link between AI implementation success and cultural acceptance (or people-oriented) of AI.
After surveying thousands of executives about how their companies use and organize artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, McKinsey found that only eight percent of firms engage in core practices that support the widespread adoption of AI.
McKinsey reports that AI faces formidable cultural and organizational barriers. Many executives view AI as a plug-and-play technology with immediate returns. This can be true if organizations start with technology (like AI chatbots) that can be quickly implemented and achieve fast time to value. However, some companies attempt to engage in million-dollar projects where they struggle to move the pilot initiatives into companywide programs.
The problem is that executives fail to align the company’s culture, structure, and ways of working to support broad AI adoption.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2018 discovered that companies that invested in their cultures were much better at implementing AI. The Boston Consulting Group assessed roughly 40 digital transformations and found that the proportion of companies reporting breakthrough or strong financial performance was five times greater (90 percent) among those that focused on culture than those that neglected culture (17 percent).
According to the BCG report, “The case for fostering a digital culture is even more powerful if we look at sustained performance: nearly 80 percent of the companies that focused on culture sustained strong or breakthrough performance. Not one of the companies that neglected to focus on culture achieved such performance.”
The authors of the McKinsey report list steps to use a people-oriented approach to implementing AI. Below are their top steps to take:
MeBeBot is a people-centric AI-driven chatbot balancing feasibility, time investment, and value. It is easy to implement. It is often implemented in less than 30 days. Its time investment for the company is low. MeBeBot has over 300 commonly asked questions of HR, IT, and Operations that can easily be adapted to new customers. MeBeBot is an exceptional value, often providing a return of $250k to $1M to the customer in six to 12 months.
MeBeBot also helps make other AI implementations people orientated. Its Push messaging and Pulse Survey capability can quickly question all or only impacted employees on upcoming AI implementation plans and ask for their feedback.
AI is a business imperative. Your AI implementation does not have to be upended by culture. Follow the McKinsey steps recommended above and use a people-oriented approach to implementing AI.