There is a pending boom of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and organizations will capitalize on them as AI continues to scale, evolve and mature. Over time, AI adoption at the enterprise level will cause an incremental upending of traditionally known roles, skills and talent composition within every single business function. According to the 2018 Human Capital Trends Report, "The transition to digital business tools is at the top of the strategic agenda for many businesses today."
If mobile, social and cloud computing were some of the biggest platform shifts and technological investments that dominated the beginning of the 21st century, AI investments will be considered the next wave of major technological shifts. Forrester predicts that most (if not all) technology functions will be augmented or replaced by AI. A survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review reports that 85% of 3,000 executives believe AI will allow their companies to "obtain or sustain a competitive advantage."
Consider the potential value for organizations:
• AI’s exponential growth is increasing at scale in every industry, sector and marketplace -- every second. AI adoption that is thoughtfully implemented will significantly improve efficiency and productivity, which can catapult an organization’s market positioning and dominance. This creates significant disruption from nontraditional competitors.
• While leaders can adopt AI to drive market value, they must first demystify the technology’s economic potential. According to the BCG survey above, using AI for competitive advantage requires companies to build up their internal skills. As a result, AI will enable a surge of digital transformations, requiring a shift in organizations' talent needs to support AI implementations across business functions.
• The AI skills of today will not be the required AI skills of tomorrow. Significant, rapid leaps in AI capabilities will create constant workforce transformations in order to stay relevant and enable disruptive growth across the organization.
Given AI’s inevitable influence as a driving force that will change every single workforce on the planet, it's imperative that talent leaders know what AI really is and why they should care.
So, What Exactly Is AI?
Artificial intelligence, in a nutshell, is a technological capability designed to mimic thought patterns to process information. It's the ability to learn such as humans and animals can.
In the past, computers have been programmed to conduct finite activity with specific steps, such as a calculator being designed solely to compute numbers upon command or a printer designed solely to print from a specified data source.
Now, technologists can program code using neural networks, similarly found in human brains. Neural networks are designed to recognize basic items such as numbers, sounds, colors, movement, words, etc., and are coded to interpret meaning (on their own).
The development of neural networks being fed information over time is a similar journey to that of a new baby as he grows and learns from his environment.
Following AI's Journey
Talent leaders will face the challenge of determining when to upskill existing roles versus when to gradually phase in new roles as part of an evolving workforce planning exercise. This is where understanding the maturity of AI adoption within business functions will be critical to understanding how talent needs will shift.
AI development can be split into three categories on a continuum:
Narrow AI represents the infancy stage artificial intelligence is currently in, to which only basic, repetitive tasks are automated. Over time, AI cognitive technologies will evolve, which is called deep machine learning. In today’s world, narrow AI technology includes things like Apple's Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
General AI is the ability to understand and use reasoning skills as a human can. In today’s world, general AI will begin to surface as products in narrow AI begin to mature and evolve.
Super AI is achieved, according to University of Oxford scholar and AI expert Nick Bostrom, "when AI becomes much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills." At present writing, Super AI is still the stuff of science fiction, although many experts believe it won't be long until we see its emergence.
Here are four ways talent leaders can prepare:
1. Take inventory of where your organization is on its AI journey, and conduct a skills gap analysis.
As Harvard Business Review states, while AI is already in use in thousands of companies around the globe, "most big opportunities have not yet been tapped." Learn more about your company’s plan to use AI, now and in the future. It is important for talent leaders to begin to wrap their heads around how AI is currently being leveraged within their organizations. Further explore what existing skills are being augmented versus new skills required.
2. Understand that AI will create a surge of digital transformations that require ongoing, complex workforce planning.
Investments in AI will result in significant transformations that will force the redesign of roles, talent needs and performance metrics across organizations.
3. Recruit top talent to help scale your organization's AI capabilities.
This will become a critical success factor. Talent scarcity will continue to be one of the biggest leadership challenges in implementing and evolving AI capabilities. The war for talent will be where companies win big or fail spectacularly.
4. Organizational change management will be the driving force in AI adoption, from both a business and talent perspective.
While businesses are primed to respond to AI-induced change, they sit on the front lines of organization-wide strategic shifts, according to Forrester. While organizations may have the technological capabilities and human talent to infuse artificial intelligence in their organization, solid change management capabilities will be a determining factor for success.
