Implementing AI solutions at the workplace for employees is a step towards cultivating a smoother, simpler workflow for employees and managers alike.

Data science, as a field and a specialisation, has seen a recent boom among students, learners, and experienced professionals alike. This new wave of data science enthusiasts has brought in several new perspectives to the domain, thus expanding the room both for innovation and experimentation in the domain itself and in the manner in which it is applied.

People from different walks of life, equipped with data science skills, identify and adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) solutions for varied problems and situations. A key strength of AI is its sheer flexibility and adaptability for complex and simple problems alike, at whatever scale the use case may require. From tracking mental health via social media usage to alerting farmers about crop status, AI has enabled us to understand, and thus, improve both ourselves and our environment.

An Exciting Avenue

On that note, one of the most promising and exciting avenues for the application of AI in the workplace. Artificial Intelligence is commonly used to classify and predict data points through self-learning algorithms that constantly update and learn in real-time to improve accuracy and speed. These AI algorithms can be easily applied at the workplace to automate tasks and reduce errors. 

When talking about automation of tasks, it must be noted that AI can not only be used to automate repetitive tasks such as calculations and communications, but also human tasks, usually at scale. This, of course, is the true strength of AI, and the only limits to its applications are those that we set.

Implementing AI at the Workplace

Following are some examples of AI being implemented at the workplace.

Siri, Cortana, Bixby, and other virtual assistants are excellent applications of AI. By accessing existing data on user devices, including calendars, emails, and messages, these virtual assistants can aid in maintaining a smoother, simpler workflow by providing automatic scheduling and prioritisation. It is something like Harry Potter talking to the air, essentially, and getting a full schedule, along with the day’s weather prediction and the traffic on your commute. Efficient, to say the very least.

Several processes across business functions can be reliably and efficiently automated with AI. Year-end review and appraisals, attendance tracking and informing, internal and external communications, sales and business forecasting, and a lot more can not only be automated but also simplified and sped up to assist and aid employees with further tasks.

It is important to remember that AI is not implemented to disrupt or interrupt human work but to aid and ease it. The goal of AI being introduced at the workplace is to enhance the employees’ work experience, consequently making their work smoother and more efficient.

A 3-Fold Benefit

Personalisation, automated insights, recommendations and predictions, all of these AI end results are designed to help employees perform their respective tasks with added nuance and understanding. Individually, both AI and human effort may inevitably fall short of their potential, but combined, there exists no limit to what can be achieved.

In fact, the benefit of bringing AI to the workplace is threefold, spanning across time, money, and effort.

An algorithm written to automate the year-end review and appraisal process, for instance, can be run for all employees simultaneously, and provide results in a much shorter timeframe than what an entire team, armed with excel sheets and coffee mugs, would likely require. This frees up the employees to focus on more complex tasks, requiring human input and creative thinking. With AI, it is easy to let computers handle tasks that do not require human intervention.

Further, investing in AI is a highly economic decision, since it more or less guarantees positive returns through automation and reduced errors, thus saving on both dear time and expensive mistakes.

Finally, in bringing AI to the workplace, the effort vs output curve for employees also starts looking better, since they can channel all of their hard work in a direction that is more closely aligned to the organisation’s goals, having eliminated the effort put towards tasks that can be reliably handed off to AI.

From chatbots to auto-responders, businesses see positive results whenever they implement AI solutions for their users. Similarly, implementing AI solutions at the workplace for employees is a step towards cultivating a smoother, simpler workflow for employees and managers alike.