Over the past 6-month, we have heard about the next wave of digital transformation brought in by Ai. Yet, outside of utopian stories of efficient teaching and better customer service and the dystopian tales of AI takeover and vast unemployment, little has been said about the immediate changes AI will bring to our businesses and professional lives. Let us look at Strategy, Risk Management, and Human Capital, three core board areas where we need to consider AI.
Cyber Strategy & Risk Management
AI’s ability to script, code and analyze behaviors enables IT-Security Departments to respond quickly to new threads. The same is true for our adversaries. These skills and capabilities allow them to write and adopt malicious code to attack our companies. Yet, AI doesn’t only produce new attacks. AI enhances traditional scam schemes and cybersecurity threads. IT can both change them to match our daily communication styles and personalize them to let them slip through the cracks of our training.
In this environment, boards must consider AI’s impact on cybersecurity risk management. Are the management’s strategies sufficient when it comes to training our workforce? Did CIO and CISO consider them in their cybersecurity planning? Are there new incidents in our industry that might spill over to us?
None of the questions should be new to a board, yet the advancements of AI change the timeline from weeks to, at most, days when boards need to prompt management to provide answers.
Strategy & Planning
AI opens many avenues to enhance the customer experience and generate new revenue. AI touches many strategic areas, from better chat-based customer service to enhanced customer feedback and product-to-market fits. While leaders sometimes feel the bains of evolving technology, laggards will lose customer satisfaction and revenue potential.
Consequently, finding the right strategy and pacing to adopt AI and which business processes it should touch first will be a top priority for management to determine and for the board to oversee.
Yet, it isn’t only the strategy itself AI will affect. Today, AI shines in summarizing text, researching, and condensing information. Thus, AI is a valuable tool for gaining an overview of the market and finding competitors’ positions and M&A targets. With many C-Levels and Board members pressed for time, AI will continue to enhance its position as the tool of choice for the initial research.
Workforce Management
One of the sayings about AI replacing us as workers is that “AI won’t replace lawyers. However, a lawyer with AI will replace three without it.” The same will hold in many professions. The efficiency gain of workers and executives comfortable using and prompting AI will reduce the headcount and time spent on low-value tasks. Incidentally, it might reverse the efficiency penalty mid and upper-level managers have experienced with the rise of computers and e-mails and the widespread disappearance of personal assistance.
Yet, companies can only claim these benefits if they have someone on staff to adapt the AI to the organization’s needs and ensure that the usage complies with laws and regulations.
While SMBs might fight outsourcing to help tackle these issues, our language constantly evolves. Consequently, mid-size and large enterprises must consider AI skills as part of their talent pipeline and strategies to stay competitive.
Beyond skill development, AI can provide enhanced capabilities in soliciting employee feedback and building employee satisfaction trends. AI can optimize how we create surveys. Beyond the traditional poll, AI can analyze video feedback and create a satisfaction profile out of a 30-second video. Since many employee surveys take significantly longer than 30 seconds, a short, self-recorded video will enable a continuous feedback loop on employee satisfaction and provide short-term feedback on the latest initiatives.
To the Future
Today, AI affects many business areas. With the continued development of technology, we will feel the impact it has on our every day, and thus we will need to adopt our business strategies and oversight to match the changing landscape. C-Suite and Boards need to stay current on the features and capabilities that develop and how companies should utilize them in a business. Go too fast, and you might spend time and money on unproven tech. Go to slow, and competitors will get your market share and talents.
Thus, let us all find the knowledge and execute the oversight to move forward at the right pace and make the best of emerging technology.