6 Steps For Making AI Accessible and Practical in the Workplace

In white collar jobs, AI use has more than doubled in the past two years. According to Gallup, frequent AI use in the workplace-meaning a few times a week or more-has increased from 11% to 19% during this period.

These statistics are expected to rise as AI becomes pivotal for teams streamlining work processes and improving efficiency.

With this adoption of AI across many workforces, there has been a mixture of excitement and apprehension, with some organizations struggling to balance practical applications of AI tools.

As AI becomes both a hot topic and transformative force in many business sectors, leaders often feel uncertain about the best ways to integrate it into everyday operations.

In this blog, we’ll explore the ways AI can be approached as a practical tool rather than an intimidating, revolutionary force in the workplace.

1. Understand AI as a Tool, Not as a Replacement

For workplace leaders, it’s important to be clear with employees – AI is not going to replace their jobs. Several businesses like Klarna temporarily took an AI-first approach, replacing many employees with automated solutions.

Klarna actually found that this approach led to lower quality customer experiences, with data from IBM supporting that only 1 in 4 AI initiatives actually deliver on promised ROI over a project’s lifespan.

If your workplace values both employee experiences and customer experiences, prioritize augmentation over replacement when implementing AI. Here are a few key points as you consider an approach:

• Align AI with your core business values and goals
• Directly address fears and concerns with your team
• Approach AI as you would any other workplace tool
• Think of AI as a productivity enhancer, not a complete process replacement

Businesses must think of ways that AI can serve their business needs and to what extent these solutions need to be used.

For some organisations, this may be extensively throughout work processes; for others, it may just be to save time on a handful of large projects.

2. Create Effective Data Infrastructures

Having clean, consistent data flows is the foundation of an effective AI implementation in the workplace. Accurate and continuous data inputs help AI performance improve over time, creating better outputs to save you time and meet business goals.

Here are a few tips to build a strong infrastructure for your AI system:

• Commit to regular data audits: Schedule reviews of your data to identify inconsistencies and outdated information, ensuring your AI system learns from accurate information.
• Establish secure data governance: Create standardized policies to ensure safe, compliant collection, storage, and management of data, maintaining consistency across your organization.
• Create a feedback system: Develop processes for users to report inaccurate AI outputs, allowing your business to detect data quality issues and improve outputs over time.

3. Explore Low-Risk Entry Points For AI Adoption

If implementing AI into important workflows seems intimidating, you’re not alone. Prioritize simple use cases to start AI exploration for your business. This can include low-risk options like research assistance or problem solving.

When vetting AI vendors, ask about low-risk ways to utilize their tools during initial exploration. Ask about trial options for your team to experiment with new solutions.

If there aren’t trial options, encourage your team to experiment with free, publicly available AI tools to build comfort and confidence during low-stakes processes.

4. Build AI Literacy Across Your Team

Along with communicating AI strategy with your team, it’s important to create methods to educate and encourage employees to use AI tools. Consider the following strategies when building AI literacy among your team:

• Communicate clearly about how AI can benefit them. AI shouldn’t be positioned as a way to only benefit your business; it should benefit your employees as well by making their workdays easier.
• Create opportunities for hands-on learning. This can include hosting training sessions that give employees learning experiences in low-stakes situations.
• Educate employees about best practices. Build educational tools that inform employees about AI features, capabilities, and limitations, as well as communicating any established AI policy at your organization.

5. Integrate AI Into Existing Workflows

Early practical applications of AI in the workplace don’t have to start with overhauling current processes or building new ones.

One way to achieve quick wins is to identify existing processes that could benefit from AI assistance. This could be relatively simple tasks like document organization and research assistance.

If your organization decides to fully adopt an AI tool into more complex work processes, consider a phased adoption approach by starting with specific business units or teams and gradually expanding to include the rest of the business. This can minimize disruption across your organization.

As you integrate AI into existing workflows be sure to:

• Measure impacts. Gather benchmark data for your work efficiency and compare outcomes after implementing AI solutions.
• Consistently adapt. Observe what’s working and what’s not, offering teams feedback opportunities to smooth out the process, especially with a phased rollout.

6. Create a Human-AI Partnership

Think of AI tools as a partner in the workplace. Technology should amplify human potential, not replace it. As you adopt solutions into the workplace, frame AI tools as a partner available for collaboration to improve human experiences.

Some key considerations include:

• Make sure AI usage aligns with your core business values
• Emphasize the separate strengths of human employees and AI systems
• Maintain human oversight during work processes

While it may sound like science fiction, human-AI partnerships are where true business success thrives. As AI evolves, workplace processes can adapt to ensure better experiences for both employees and customers.

So, What’s Next

As you consider ways to make AI accessible in your workplace, it can be helpful to think small and scale with intention.

Implementing new solutions can be overwhelming, especially in workplaces like enterprise-scale contact centres where educating and training agents can require extensive resources.

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This post has been re-published by kind permission of Aspect - view the original article.

Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Reviewed by: Robyn Coppell