Naughty or Nice? How will your organisation respond to AI?

Naughty or Nice? How will your organisation respond to AI?

This picture is intended to prompt you to think about an important question. I should emphasise, that the question is not “How can AI image generators be so brilliant at generating engaging pictures like this – and yet so dim that they don't know which way around to use a typewriter?"

No. The question is 'Naughty or Nice?' .. specifically, which will your organisation choose to be in the face of transformational changes in work due to AI? By that, I mean will the organisations attitude to employees and work n the face of the 'AI Tsunami'  be one of:

• Naughty: “AI is great because we can fire all of those pesky, high-cost, troublesome employees and replace them with bots – and we can closely monitor and control and those few humans that remain!”

• Nice: “AI is great because we can enable our people to do more and better; free them from the dull work and thus enable them to apply their talent to doing things that only humans can do .. And make their experience better in the process!”

Now when I say “choose' I am being somewhat generous. It seem to me that many organisations will have few choices in this regard. The choice will depend on industry structure and the core capabilities of the business.

That is: your organisation may choose to be 'nice' – but if the competitors, new-entrants and/or substitutes decide to be 'naughty' – then how, realistically, will you compete? Even if the 'naughty' companies are not as capable – then what happens if they charge a fraction of your price? This is the problem addressed by my blog post 'We've got a machine that can learn the knack'

What will customers choose to do? Even if your organisation is brilliant at what it does, then you could be drowned out by the sheer volume of low-price alternatives.

And, the naughty competitors being less capable is the best-case scenario here. It could, of course, be that the naughty organisations actually learn how to leverage the technology to actually offer better products and services. And that is a key goal for organisations, right? Both to be more effective and more efficient?

Thinking through the implications of this conundrum will be important either if you are a 'worker' in such an organisation or if you are in a senior-leadership role, shaping the future of the business.

In our work on organisational AI capability building We have been using the 'HumBot Spectrum'  to help organisations think through where they will be in the future in the balance between human and automation. The HumBot sprectrum looks like this:

Hum-Bot Work Spectrum : How will work be divided between humans and AI?

You can apply the framework either at a gross level: “Where do we sit, broadly, as an organisation now and in the future?” Or it can be applied on a role-by-role or task-by-task  basis to help think through the implications of transformation. For each job/role/ task, where are you now? Where will you be in the future?

If you are an individual thinking about your own job then the same logic applies. Where are you on this HumBot spectrum at the moment? And where is your job likely to be in the future?

Just about now those people with skills in such things as plastering, artisan bread making, creative dance and personal care might be feeling pretty smug. As a species our big primate brains, nimble fingers and refined sensory apparatus will make skills like those difficult and expensive to replace. If, like me, you are not in that happy position*; then the question boils down to a sequential antelope series of questions:

1. Is my job / role so uniquely 'human' that I have little to worry about in the face of the coming AI Tsunami?, and if not ..

2. How long until I can retire? i.e. Can I make it there without being swamped by the Tsunami? (In my case … maybe, just maybe;) and if not,

3. How can I leverage my currents skills, talents and relationships to keep adding value in the new 'AI transformed' world?; and if the options seem few, then finally;

4. How can I re-skill, re-train and build new relationships to enable me to prosper in this new world?

Senior leadership in organisations are confronted by a similar dilemma that follows a rather similar decision logic:

1. Are the core capabilities of my organisation really not subject to the threat? i.e. we have some unique, highly-valuable capability that is resilient in the face of the evolution of AI-enhanced incumbent competitors, new entrants and substitutes? And if not ...

2. How quickly before we can exit this business or, less attractively, how long will it be before we are forcibly 'exited'?; and if we want to avoid that ..

3. How can we transform the business, building on current capabilities and relationships ... probably by leveraging the new technologies (Surfing the Tsunami); and if that does not seem possible ..

4. What new business model do we need to create that does have a good chance of success in the new transformed world?

Whether your organisation is 'naughty' or 'nice' might be a meta-strategic question. That is, you may not realistically have much efficacy in the face of the Tsunami. But which camp you sit in should drastically shape both your career strategy and/or your business strategy in the coming months and years. It may be time to decide: naughty or nice?

* My days of dreaming about a future in creative dance are, sadly, long-gone.