How Organizations Are Benefitting By ‘Humanizing’ AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) can work wonders for businesses—if they’d just give it a chance. But most aren’t prepared to do that, according to a new Fivetran study. Although 87% of top organizations believe that AI is “vital to their business survival,” 86% “struggle to fully trust AI” to make business decisions. As a result, 90% end up relying on their antiquated manual processes to make decisions, fearing to cede control to an entity that may not truly understand their organization’s goals, problems or methods of working.
Studies show that AI can save organizations significant amounts of money—or even make them money. So, why the holdup in adoption? As the Fivetran study suggests, organizations are reluctant to trust AI because they fear that systems could replace humans in the decision chain—with systems making choices that can end up changing the nature of the organization. But it doesn’t have to be this way—and it shouldn’t. AI’s best use is assisting humans to do their jobs better by taking on basic, routine work that frees up humans to carry out creative tasks, with AI acting as an enabler to enhance productivity.
Some skepticism of AI is warranted. After reviewing large amounts of AI-generated data, researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oslo concluded that “AI systems often have a degree of confidence that far exceeds their actual abilities. And like an overconfident person, many AI systems don’t know when they’re making mistakes.” According to the researchers, “not all AI is inherently flawed, but it’s only reliable in specific areas, using specific methods.”
Indeed, AI systems have been guilty of some significant “bloopers,” including identifying members of Congress as criminals via facial recognition, bias in hiring and incompetence that led a hotel to dump much of its AI-powered robot staff. Based on that, handing over control to AI systems may not be the best move for a business.
However, studies show that businesses that adopt AI systems can realize significant advantages. Among them are increasing profits (by at least 5% and higher in many cases) and experiencing better year-over-year growth than companies that have yet to adopt AI for at least one major business function. AI systems also enable organizations to discover better investment opportunities, help manufacturers maximize their production resources and sometimes can lead to increased revenues.
The challenge for organizations is to find a role for AI that enables them to reap its benefits—while avoiding its pitfalls. Studies show that the best way to do that is to develop a “joint administration” program that allows AI systems to automate significant portions of an organization’s workflow while giving AI’s human “partners” the final say on what needs to be done and how to do it.
