DeeDee Kato, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Foxit, says AI-powered document tools are moving beyond labs into real-world business use, driving efficiency, accuracy and collaboration across industries.
AI has reached a pivotal moment in the enterprise. Once confined to innovation labs and speculative roadmaps, it is now integrated into everyday workflows, especially in how businesses handle documents. Whether it is automating summaries, translating content or unlocking buried insights, AI is reshaping how knowledge workers engage with the most essential business assets: their content.
Reclaiming time and talent
Manual document work has long been a time drain. From reformatting text to locating key clauses in contracts, these repetitive tasks create friction in processes and prevent teams from focusing on strategic work. AI is helping organisations move beyond these bottlenecks.
Modern document technologies powered by AI can summarise lengthy documents in seconds, extract critical data points, suggest next steps or even translate and tailor content for different stakeholders. These capabilities are not replacing people, they are amplifying them.
In fact, according to IDC Analyst Brief, employees themselves are asking for tools that make their work easier and more impactful.
“While fears of automation’s impact on staffing are real, employees tell IDC that they want to see their parent companies invest in tools that make them more successful (source: IDC’s Future of Work Survey, June 2024). By improving productivity and collaboration experiences, AI tools can lead to more fulfilling and engaging work for employees.”
Cross-departmental impact
The value of AI-powered document tools extends across departments and industries:
- Legal: AI assistants help teams quickly surface relevant case law, summarise decisions and navigate large volumes of documents without scroll fatigue
- Finance: Automated analysis of contracts can flag payment terms, summarise recognition milestones and streamline audits, improving cash flow and compliance outcomes
- Engineering: Real-time translation and contextual understanding support multilingual collaboration, particularly in global product development environments
- HR: Drafting and tailoring development plans and performance reviews becomes faster and more customised with AI support
- IT operations: Automated documentation summaries and intelligent knowledge search help reduce resolution time for technical issues
These are not theoretical advantages, they are tangible, measurable improvements that can increase throughput, reduce errors and help businesses respond more quickly to changing needs.
A measured approach to innovation
Still, AI adoption brings valid concerns. Data privacy, accuracy and unpredictable costs can stall decision-making. In the same IDC Analyst Brief, it stated:
“With any major technology disruption comes risk, and AI technologies are no exception to that rule. Companies must balance the benefits of business optimisation with security concerns, so it makes sense that data security and privacy are the top priorities. Companies fear losing control of their data and intellectual property. They also have fears around costs, with the assumption that AI tools require additional spending with billing that is hard to predict.”
Organisations evaluating AI-powered document tools should prioritise solutions that offer data transparency, encryption and secure data isolation. Cost predictability and flexible feature sets are also key considerations, especially as use cases scale across teams.
The path forward
The reality is clear: AI is already embedded in document workflows, and it is delivering results. The opportunity now is to move beyond isolated tools and toward intelligent, integrated systems that meet workers where they are, whether they are summarising reports, building proposals or combing through compliance documents.
Documents are the connective tissue of modern business. With the right AI-powered approach, they can become a source of speed, insight and innovation.
