Leveraging the workforce to drive AI

Natalia Schmidt at Avanade argues that the driving force behind AI transformation is the power of employees

 

Businesses are forgetting the most important aspect of AI success. In the current AI race, there is an emphasis on how the technology effects the ROI and efficiency of a business, and less so on how it affects employees. People are ultimately the driving force behind the impact of AI on an organisation; but this is often overshadowed by the focus on business outcomes.

 

For organisations to achieve their desired efficiencies, it is crucial to support and educate employees throughout the AI adoption journey.

 

Employees are the true enablers of AI success within an organisation, so businesses must prioritise their empowerment and education to fully reap the transformative benefits of AI. Last year, nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies had adopted Microsoft Copilot 365, showing that GenAI’s value is being recognised by some of the world’s biggest players. For AI to have a transformative impact, businesses must trust their employees to lead the way in leveraging these tools. 

 

At Avanade, since applying AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot 365 across our organisation, we have seen first-hand how the technology fosters positive shifts in value alignment, efficiency and creativity.

 

With 10,000 monthly active users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees can put more of a focus on business transformation and growth through Copilot freeing up capacity and increasing productivity. This shows that, through leveraging Copilot, employees can drive transformative business growth by unlocking key benefits that enhance collaboration and innovation across the organisation.

 

We have also seen over 2,000 monthly active users engaging with custom built AI tools. 70% of users feel that they have a greater likelihood of fostering creative approaches to tasks, and 50% are feeling more creative and innovative as a result of leveraging the AI tools.

 

Beyond out-of-the-box AI, we also apply custom build transformative AI solutions. These prove beneficial for enhancing morale – with 80% of employees saying that the tools are operating in line with good corporate values. While there is a lot of scaremongering around AI across society, if integrated strategically, it can in have revolutionary effects on business operations. 

 

Businesses are incredibly multi-faceted and as they grow, they become even more complex with diverse internal teams that have unique needs and functions. To unlock AI’s full potential, organisations must tailor their AI strategies to reflect these differences. For example, teams such as Talent Acquisition and Information Security’s everyday expectations and functions are different, so their use of AI should be customised accordingly.

 

By adopting this targeted approach to AI adoption, organisations can ensure that the technology delivers maximum value to individuals. Examples of how customising AI tools to suit each team’s specific needs leads to higher adoption rates, greater efficiency, and stronger outcomes include:  

• Job Posting Generator: Through introducing this custom-built AI applications, Talent Acquisition teams are able quickly align job descriptions with a specific ‘tone of voice’. This both improves resource allocation and streamlines the recruitment process, while also creating job postings 87% faster. 
• Delivery Copilot: Tools such as private chat, backlog management and DevOps support have the capabilities to save delivery leads up to 1 hour per day per user, in turn significantly increasing employee efficiency and productivity.
• Global Information Security Agents: This solution has proven to assist in mitigating risks and maintain user trust in real time, through responding to security queries 90% faster, and with greater precision. 

The rising adoption of AI across businesses comes with a range of misconceptions. These misunderstandings often lead to employees either using the technology ‘incorrectly’, or, in some cases, avoiding it altogether. This is why AI education is critical.

 

Training programmes, such as Avanade’s School of AI, help individuals gain a deeper understanding of AI and its potential. These programmes are also valuable for helping employees know where they should be using AI within their department to ensure its use is both purposeful and impactful.

 

Hackathons are also a practical way of spreading AI knowledge across organisations. Through engaging employees with real-life use cases, hackathons help employees learn about and navigate AI in a way that is both personal and interactive.

 

One of the most exciting developments in AI is the rise of agentic AI. AI Agents can autonomously take actions and make decisions within defined parameters, representing a leap forward in terms of efficiency, decision-making, and personalisation. However, its emergence also comes with a new set of challenges and opportunities for organisations. 

 

Businesses must prepare for agentic AI by fostering a culture that embraces autonomy, accountability, and ethical decision-making. Training employees to work alongside these more autonomous systems will be key to ensuring that businesses continue to thrive as AI evolves. Clear guidelines for integrating agentic AI with human oversight will help maintain trust and transparency, ensuring that the technology enhances rather than replaces human capabilities.

 

Recently, there has been an increasing focus on striking a balance between AI regulation and innovation. Conferences such as the AI Action Summit have highlighted that, while organisations want to leverage the latest AI innovations to their full benefits, there are widespread concerns around how organisations can do this in a way that complies with regulations. This is why AI governance is key.

 

By adopting a well-defined AI governance strategy, business leaders can introduce AI in a way that drives innovation but also ensures a robust security posture. Considering the security implications of AI early in the adoption process increases the likelihood of successful, responsible implementation.

 

To stay ahead of the curve, businesses must be prioritising internal AI adoption. If they aren’t doing so already, they will be missing out on AI’s efficiency and ROI benefits, giving the upper hand to competitors.

 

That said, they shouldn’t jump into this without a clear and well thought out AI adoption strategy. Both the regulatory and tech landscape are as fast-moving as ever, and businesses need to ensure that organisations are both able to keep up with digital transformation, while complying with the global data regulations.

 

This is also pivotal for garnering employee trust around AI: if employees see a successful and safe AI roll out, they will feel more incentivised to use the technology in their day-to-day role.

 

---

 

Natalia Schmidt is Director of Data and AI at Avanade

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and PonyWang