CIOs should steer clear of the idea of AI as ‘some kind of silver bullet’ says Sandie Overtveld, Senior Vice President for APJ, Middle East and Africa, Freshworks.
From cost efficiency, regulatory compliance, and trend spotting to productivity boosts via employees freed of mundane tasks – there is no shortage of talk about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will solve complex business problems. Indeed, it would probably be easier – not to mention, shorter – to list down what enterprises and people think AI cannot do.
Although significant breakthroughs – see more powerful generative models – in the past year have allowed AI to flourish, the fog of uncertainty over the business landscape today has also enhanced its Draw. Businesses have already used it to cut emissions, combat fraud and money laundering, beef up cyber security and resilience, as well as plug workforce gaps.
Freshworks recently surveyed 2,000 IT professionals and found that 86% of their organizations were already using generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT), with over half of these organizations actively encouraging AI use in the workplace. And this isn’t hot air; 71% of the survey’s respondents were already realising productivity improvements through AI – 39% of whom reported that they were better equipped to focus on higher-level tasks.
However, a good rule of thumb is to steer clear of the assumption that technologies like AI can be some kind of silver bullet. This is especially so for CIOs who have a key role in maximizing AI tools by encouraging employees to experiment safely.
The ‘techceleration’ of recent years has brought IT complexity and sprawl into the spotlight. Speak to the average IT staff and chances are they’ll tell you how days are spent trying to manage increasingly large and complex digital environments.
Freshworks’ survey provides some insight into the scale of this problem. The findings suggest that the number of apps installed for the exclusive use of IT teams has increased by 71% since 2022, yet less than a third of them are being used.
This is not only a waste of money, but it also bogs people down as these apps need to be installed and maintained. Haphazardly adding AI tools to this already heady mix will only add to tool sprawl.
CIOs need to ensure that pursuing AI adoption doesn’t exacerbate bloatware. This can be achieved via a unified approach. CIOs who want to empower their organizations to be early movers should look to an Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps) platform that integrates with existing IT service management (ITSM) tools and processes. This brings together information, insights, and capabilities that were previously siloed while facilitating easy-to-implement, easy-to-use and easy-to-scale solutions that prime the business to delight its customers.
Out of the 2,000 IT professionals from around the world surveyed by Freshworks, around 87% were concerned about generative AI being used by colleagues. In fact, 73% had expressed privacy concerns, while 59% were worried about inappropriate or inaccurate results being disclosed to employees and customers.
This highlights that business leaders need to follow the sober stance technologists have taken, especially as the hype around AI continues.
Furthermore, there is considerable skepticism among employees themselves about AI. More than a third of the respondents stated they did not want AI to help with task completion, despite 45% estimating that half of their work could be automated.
This underscores the misgivings that many still have about AI’s impact on the future of work.
And if employees are resistant, then you can be certain that AI will only create more – potentially insurmountable – problems for businesses to solve later down the road.
However, although these business risks are very real, CIOs can overcome them by managing them as early as possible.
Regarding regulation, security, privacy, misinformation and bias, early adopters must be wary of AI tools that do not guarantee rigorous adherence to the latest data security and privacy practices.
In particular, personal data encryption at rest and in transit is essential, as this ensures sensitive information is protected from exposure to third parties.
Meanwhile, to overcome the trepidation people have about AI, CIOs must take on the mantle of helping their organizations foster employee awareness.
Ultimately, educating through the persuasiveness of one’s arguments goes a long way to securing buy-in.
With AI’s potential, taking a human-centric approach to this awareness building will bring employees on board.
Not only that, it will also equip the organization’s people to understand AI risks and be bulwarks in the fight against AI-powered spamming, scamming and phishing.
As businesses chart their unique path for harnessing AI, CIOS mustn’t lose sight of the fact that every instance of innovation since time immemorial has both pros and cons. And as AI’s capabilities continue to grow, it will be even more critical to get ahead of the curve.
When it comes down to it, businesses would be mistaken if they were to conceptualize AI risk as the sole domain of vendors and Big Tech.
Businesses leveraging AI have a duty to protect the privacy of every nugget of information they hold, and were they fail to uphold that responsibility they too will face the consequences.
Although AI is undoubtedly set to transform the way businesses do what they do best, there must be a certain amount of caution and how they adapt to that reality will determine success or failure.
As long as CIOs never lose sight of this and take preventive measures, then there is little reason AI won’t improve customer and employee experiences, cost efficiency, and execution of business strategies.
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