Are You Ready for a New Era of Work?
AI, the cornerstone of the modern digital transformation era, is already being leveraged by forward-thinking organizations. While AI has several applications, benefits to employee engagement, empowerment and productivity are among the most exciting and impactful. In fact, organizations that made employee engagement a top priority have seen significant financial improvements – up to twice as successful – as organizations that deprioritized engagement2. This is not surprising as engaged employees are productive employees, especially when utilizing the intelligent processing, analysis, summarization and automation of other tedious tasks that AI for work can bring.
0%
Of people don’t have enough focus time1
0%
Of people spend too much time searching for information1
Readiness and Responsibility
Responsible AI implementation, including the right tools and mindset, is critical to a successful and safe AI adoption. Shifting to AI should be done intentionally with clear leadership and a full buy-in from all parties.
So, what does true AI readiness look like? An existing foundation of productivity, collaboration, stable management and change enthusiasm will help usher your employees and customers into responsible AI practices. Evaluating your readiness level is the first step in transitioning and transforming your organization to stay ahead of the challenges inherent to the modern digital workplace.
0%
Of employees would delegate work to AI to lessen workloads2
0%
Say using AI tools empowers them to feel fulfilled and focus on the work that matters most3
Want to know your AI readiness score? See you in the next section. Ready to learn how Withum can help you in your AI journey? Contact our AI Services Team.
Quiz Time: Evaluate Your AI Readiness
Microsoft has compiled a quiz with questions designed to evaluate your organization’s AI readiness level. The quiz will address:
- Relationship to change and productivity
- Relationship to AI
- Willingness to use AI
- Investment and funding abilities and
- Endpoint management and security capabilities
How Do You Know Your Organization Is Ready for AI?
Take this quiz to evaluate your organization’s readiness level for transforming to an AI-powered organization.
Ready? Unlock the Potential of AI Rooted in Responsible Strategy
Did you get great news, good news or “just okay” news? But the real good news is no matter what quiz results you achieved, any company (and anyone) is capable of leveraging automation and achieving secure and productive access and technology for employees and customers. But readiness is not a one-time box to check – it is a constant commitment to the tenants that makes AI for work stay safe and valuable. If an organization is not able to maintain a positive relationship to change, productivity and AI; meaningful time and monetary investment into AI and safe and secure endpoint management and guardrails, they might need to revisit if AI is the right fit at that time.
6 Steps to Get Started with AI
- Make a list of processes you think would benefit from AI: Simply ask yourself what processes would be better if they could be automated or even simplified. If the time and resources are available, it might be worthwhile to engage in a two-day diagnostic to help identify key processes and determine how AI can help solve your most pressing business challenges.
- Determine the AI services that apply: Build out your virtual agent/bot with the appropriate AI services — text analysis, speech analysis, data analysis, etc.
- Hire or train an internal AI team: Even if you decide to engage with a dedicated outsourced AI partner, you’ll still need to hire or train an in-house AI team who understands how your specific AI solutions work and how they leverage your existing backend systems.
- Provide role-specific AI training and education: Create and roll out companywide training and education programs. To ensure the new technologies or solutions are understood and adhered to, you’ll want to tailor your training to be role-specific.
- Determine your AI strategy and roadmap: Even before building or implementing anything, you need to develop an AI strategy and roadmap. Your strategy will help determine how to specifically leverage AI across your organization and allow you to prioritize your AI initiatives.
- Customize your strategy to fit your industry: Last but not least, you’ll need to make sure your AI strategy takes into consideration all industry-specific security and compliance requirements.
AI works to secure access, automate time-consuming tasks, lower costs of deployment and implementation, improve employee engagement, reduce redundant software and drive positive financial performance and business outcomes. AI for work is a tool for the progress and betterment of your workforce, not a replacement. It is worth the time to get it right.
Contact Us
No matter where you are in your AI journey, Withum will meet you there. Think about your top priorities and contact our AI Services Team to find out how you can accomplish these (and more) faster and smarter.
References
[1] “Will AI Fix Work?” Work Trend Index, May 9, 2023. Microsoft.
[2] “The New Performance Equation in the Age of AI,” Work Trend Index, April 20, 2023. Microsoft.
[3] “A Whole New Way of Working,” Work Trend Index. Microsoft.
