Managing non-human colleagues: who’s leading whom in the Age of AI?

In a recent Digital Leaders Salon we debated Artificial Intelligence (AI), chatbots and the future for humans. There was great hope about the emerging possibilities for customer engagement, enabled by AI.

Hot on the heels of the Digital Age,the‘AI Age’ is upon us.FromSiri, to Alexa, predictive text,personalisedads, auto-messagingand chat-bots,commonplace tech in our everydayconsumerlives, is rapidlypervadingour workplaces.To stay current,no matterwithwhichgeneration youmost closelyidentify,youneed to understand howto adapt to working with‘non-human colleagues’.

Take the case of Andrew and Amy, twonew team membersengaged by one businesstomanagediaryscheduling.Amy and Andrewhave beenhired for their professional, personal and highly efficient capabilities,andtoreducetime lost tomeeting planningemail ping-pong. Every day they are entrusted by their managers tocommunicatefreely with othercolleagueswithin the business,and with multipleclient contacts.Amy and Andreware AI assistants, and theyare ‘non-humans’, although they behave with veryconvincinghuman-like personas.

Don’t expect your non-human colleagues to be pigeon-holed in administrative tasks.Take the example of aweb development businessthat iscreatingAI-enabled support assistants to engage with mental health and elderly care patients. The UK’s NHS is at the forefront of exploring use-cases for non-human supporters of very humanpatients. Will AI every reach a point where it can alleviate pressure on over-stretched human service providers?

Harvardpredicts that we will soon see the dawn ofrobo-managers,who will usemachinelearning to devise complex project schedules, task allocation and monitor our progress.In future, you may have to answer to arobo-boss for routine progress updates and reporting.

There is huge potential forAI-enabled technologies to transform the way that we engage with colleagues, customers and end users. The question is not ‘if’, but ‘when’ you will adopt AI into your business, organisation or personal career path.

If you are in a leadership position today,there are many new facets ofDigitalLeadership’toconsider andAIneeds to be on your agenda – now.Thelikelihood is that you are alreadyimplementingAI withinyourbusiness,orconsidering when you will need to do so.

Here are some AI essentials for Digital Leaders everywhere:

1. Understand the AI Spectrum: the potential AI tech-stack is huge – and growing. With everything from investment portfolio analysis, sales-enablement, customer care assistants, through to free-to-use chatbot services, evaluate where’s best to start your AI adoption.
2. Readiness to adopt: with many attention-grabbing headlines about bots stealing jobs, be mindful of the potential for anything labelled ‘AI’ to cause concern or resistance within an organisation. Engage your early adopters to test and champion the use-cases.
3. Adopt in-house first: before you unleash AI on external customers or end-users, focus on opportunities to engage staff in realising the benefits of AI-enabled systems, such as machine-learning (ML) or Robotic Process Automation RPA). For large and complex organisations, customer experience starts with existing colleagues who could be liberated from mundane operational admin and then be released to re-discover their creative, problem-solving talents.
4. Strive for frictionless experiences: as consumers we expect as near to a one-click service as we can, and today’s GenWeb are increasingly dispensing with clicks or typed instructions in favour of voice. Frictionless experiences are borne from the relentless pursuit of customer-centric, human system design thinking. You need highly empathic, organised and creative humans to deliver this.
5. Ethics and Governance: the biggest job for leaders is to set a clear course on the values that govern ethical standards as you start to adopt AI technologies. With the rise of voice-based automation, natural-language analysis, the potential for non-human generated voice interactions is becoming more convincing. What is the impact for your colleagues, customers and end-users if they think they’re dealing with a human when in fact, it’s a bot?
6. In experts we trust: ultimately, it is the bot-handlers, the developers, creatives and programmers who manage the direction of development of your AI capabilities. As well as good governance, ensuring that your experts are thinking and acting with the very best integrity is essential. This is about nudging and nurturing egalitarian and inclusive values at every step of the way. Take heed of recent cases of ‘unconscious bias’ in programming such as Apple’s iPhone facial recognition and other instances, that inadvertently favoured the white, male demographic profile of the technology developers.

As we accelerate at speed into the AI Age, the remit for digital leaders has widened once more. As ever, ignorance is nodefence, and leaders mustconstantly re-appraisethe opportunities and limitations of AI adoption. And for those worried about a dystopian future, think instead of the new skills profile that will be required. Humans will (for now) have exclusivity on creativity, entrepreneurship,sensitivityand empathy. The future is exciting if you view it with humanity.

By Alison Freer, Director of Consulting and Learning at durhamlane, specialising in commercial leadership development for leaders of high-growth and transforming organisations.