Imagine a new colleague joining your organisation.
Within their first hour they can work through thousands of emails, analyse years of project information, review contracts, search policies, examine spreadsheets, prepare presentations, organise meetings and produce reports.
That “colleague” could increasingly be AI.
Episode 8 of AI Matters explores the next stage in workplace Artificial Intelligence: moving beyond AI as a tool towards the idea of the AI colleague.
The potential prize is time.
A significant amount of work involves finding, processing and reorganising information before a person can actually use their expertise. If AI can take on more of that repetitive work, employees can spend more time on the areas where people add greater value.
But the episode isn’t an argument for replacing humans.
It’s about redesigning work.
Businesses need to identify the tasks AI can perform effectively, decide where human validation remains essential and think differently about the skills managers and employees will require.
It also changes what good leadership might look like. The manager of the future may not necessarily be the person who personally holds the most information. It may be the person who understands the organisation well enough to know how people, data and AI should work together.
The key takeaway: stop thinking only about AI as software. Start thinking about how it could work alongside your people.
