I have taught digital transformation and helped companies with transformation projects for many years, The model I use is strongly built around two human aspects: customer needs and experiences, and organisational culture. We cannot build or redesign a company without focussing on whose needs are being met, and how the teams within the business align around change and improvement. Of course technology, governance and processes are important but I see these as secondary behind then scenes aspects rather than the purpose and people on stage.
The rise of AI – from technical solutions that analyse and bring business data to life to human facing chatbots and personalised service – will clearly affect organisations whether they are in the middle of a transformation or just starting one. Will this follow the impact patterns of previous technologies such as the cloud or mobile services, or does AI affect businesses and customers in more profound ways?
I think that the effects will be bigger and more powerful, and crucially less predictable. The choices will not be around whether vendor X is better than vendor Y or whether we can achieve better cost savings through implementing A versus B. Instead I believe AI will force every organisation to reevaluate what it does, how it harnesses human talent to achieve this as well as the complex changes to customer and employee expectations and experiences.
I’ve had a go at visualising some of the components. This is very much a work in progress but I can already see powerful ways of using this single slide to motivate group discussions and debate. I’d love comments or suggestions for improvement.
My intention in creating this is to look for ways to be clear about the role of humans in a world with more AI while harnessing the increasing power of the technology. Let me restate my conclusions after thinking about this for some weeks: we need to focus on human values, human experiences, human needs, problems that when solved directly benefit humans, and human learning. If instead we simply use the technology to optimise parts our business for efficiency, we risk becoming irrelevant to both our customers and our workforce.
I expect I’ll continue iterating model for the rest of the year. I hope some of you find it useful in progressing your own thinking.
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