Three Things That Are Most Overlooked While Planning AI Projects
Date Posted: March 31, 2022
Posted In: Discussion,
From The Contractor’s Compass: How may your artificial intelligence (AI) or other technology project impact your corporate culture and client experience?
- While AI is transforming the workplace and the business environment, the unintended consequences of technology can backfire, both internally and externally.
- Negative experiences with AI can cause companies to lose their customers and damage their corporate culture.
- To get the benefits of AI and maintain a healthy corporate culture, organizations need to take deliberate steps to prepare the workplace and think through potential impacts as part of the planning process.
Your organization is eager to put AI to work – you have good data, a legitimate business problem to solve and the resources you need to do it. What are potential obstacles?
In a recent survey by Dale Carnegie & Associates, 76% of U.S. respondents at the level of Director or higher said they were at least moderately worried about the potential impact of AI on their organization’s corporate culture.
- Technology, in general, has a history of inflicting unintended consequences. Take the simple example of interactive voice response (IVR) menus that began replacing live receptionists at many businesses decades ago. Instead of talking immediately with a person, callers are given an automated greeting that routes them through options on the keypad or through voice recognition.
- IVR systems were intended to reduce costs, help callers find answers to routine questions, and provide a self-service option for common tasks. Additionally, they would direct callers to the right person or department for more complex issues.
What happened? Customers of many businesses were frustrated at having to listen to irrelevant information, having their responses misinterpreted by the voice recognition software, and wasting time. Many began “zeroing out” (pressing “0” or selecting a response that took them to a human agent), defeating the whole purpose of the system.