An online retailer recently underwent an AI transformation after realizing that it now not needed to employ expensive local staff to offer customer support. It split its customer support between AI bots that served as the primary level of support and an offshore team that AI could route calls to and acted because the second level of support. Operational costs plummeted, but service and sales quality also dropped.
This is only one example of the most popular conversation in every boardroom, event, and skilled conference. Executives need to know greater than anything after they can finally replace employees who need advantages, vacations, mental health programs, promotions, and skilled development with a military of AI bots. And we’d like to speak about it.
On the chopping block are roles equivalent to customer support, software developers, copywriters and content creators, marketing managers, forklift operators, drivers and more. The latest entry on this extinction list is none aside from the CEO, says . But that doesn't worry me as much because we CEOs are still those who determine who shall be replaced by AI.
Let us expand, not replace
On behalf of all CEOs, I admit that 75-90% of our day by day work may be fully automated by AI. Any task that involves gathering information, analyzing it, and recommending decisions to maximise results, AI can do higher than a human CEO. Then there's the remaining 10-25%, and so they are critical and unique to the best way a CEO is as a pacesetter. These include empathy, responsibility, vision, and inspiration, to call a number of.
I would love to spend more time on that 10-25% and fewer on every part else. If I actually have more time left, I’ll happily use it to value my workplace and my team much more.
As a software developer, I actually have shared responsibilities in my day by day tasks. I actually have little question that this can be the case in most other jobs, other than a number of terrible ones that shouldn't exist. Most employees would definitely welcome spending more time on creative and human tasks, having more flexibility and having fun with more free time. That's what we’d like AI for, not to exchange us.
Here are 3 actions CEOs and business leaders should take as a substitute of replacing employees with AI.
Reduce workload and work weeks
Burnout is getting worse, lowering productivity and increasing turnover. AI increases workforce efficiency and provides employees more hours per day. Reduce each worker's workload and provides them more time per week to enhance their lives and loyalty to your organization without compromising performance.
This may be achieved by prioritizing the usage of co-pilot-style AI tools—tools that increase worker productivity but don't attempt to take over completely. Resist the temptation to exchange even junior employees with tools just like the much-vaunted Devin, the world's first fully autonomous AI software developer. Without a junior talent pool, you'll never have truly competent experienced employees.
Realign responsibilities
When AI takes over mundane, repetitive tasks, your team has more room for creative, human work. Change your organizational structure and job descriptions to make room for the strategic, relationship-focused work that AI simply can't do in addition to a human. When employees' to-do lists are smaller, leaders and managers can shift their focus to difficult and developing them in other, more priceless areas, equivalent to relationship constructing and soft skills.
Again, AI might help, but not in the best way you may think. Rather than replacing humans, it might probably unlock insights (from data already available to most firms) that result in hiring and promoting the best people for the job. Software to discover the essential soft skills that result in success in specific roles may be extremely priceless for each employers and employees. Ultimately, improving job satisfaction will boost morale and your bottom line—a win-win.
Maintaining competitive remuneration
Less work and consistent and even higher wages – it sounds paradoxical. And while software improvements can and may result in operational savings, it shouldn't come on the expense of your team. By using AI to benchmark your organization's compensation, you may discover trends and create more competitive compensation packages on your employees. Combined with manageable workloads and more free time, you'll achieve higher time to rent, quality of hire, productivity and performance.
Salary will at all times be a big a part of worker compensation, but firms can be smart to contemplate less tangible compensation aspects that result in happier employees and higher retention than money alone. These key non-tangible aspects include work flexibility, autonomy, and a healthy work environment. Of course, this is dependent upon who you hire. As long as they’re people and never bots, using AI to spice up soft skill competencies will create a greater team and work culture overall.
How it goes on
Is using AI to reinforce headcount reasonably than replace headcount too ambitious a goal? Can firms that concentrate on shareholder value not afford to do that because they shall be penalized by the stock marketplace for not being aggressive enough in resource optimization? That will likely be the market impetus.
But there’s considered one of the few features of a CEO that can not be replaced by AI: leadership. A superb leader knows that individuals are irreplaceable for the survival of a corporation. AI should as a substitute help employees grow to be exponentially more priceless to their firms by spending more time on creative productivity, and help firms grow to be more priceless to their employees by improving their lives.
Since some CEOs are only driven by the stock market (and yes, they will easily get replaced by AI), I don't expect this approach to be widely adopted. Capitalism will not be known for prioritizing improving the lives of anyone aside from shareholders. This is where the federal government must step in and provides us clear guidelines on how AI should and mustn’t be used to enhance lives.
The race to exchange human employees with AI must end. Instead, we must always discuss how AI can increase worker productivity and improve their lives.
