Tips for promoting AI inclusivity

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the latest technology trend that is transforming how we work.

Understanding how AI can benefit your organisation is important to stay relevant in the job market, but it’s also beneficial to learn how it can hinder operations.

SnapLogic’s AI Playbook discussed how to benefit from AI in the workplace while still being aware of the risks it poses.

“The current business landscape is unpredictable, and that puts pressure on budgets and resources. Businesses are adapting to a turbulent environment by using AI in very specific, practical ways to improve productivity,” said Jeremiah Stone, chief technology officer of SnapLogic.

“The biggest change is in mindset – seeing AI as a teammate which can learn, not a fixed tool, working to support its more ‘senior’, human colleagues, who in turn mentor and coach it to reduce errors and improve its output. Some employees may have reservations about AI in the workplace, but the reality is that AI is already reshaping the way we work. To stay competitive, businesses successfully adopting AI have an empathic understanding of employees’ reservations and address them constructively.”

With this in mind, organisations can benefit by adopting an “AI-inclusive culture”. One method of achieving this is the “ADKAR Model”, said business psychologist Danni Haig.

Awareness: of the need for incorporating AI into work systems
Desire: to participate and support the new way of working
Knowledge: of how to incorporate AI into their work
Ability: to implement new processes and technology
Reinforcement: to sustain change, make sure communication around enterprise AI, its
benefits and how to implement it is frequent.

“Humans tend to cling onto information and behaviours that they know, which means they often reject new ways of working or adopting new skills. IT and business leaders should be understanding about AI scepticism and have a clear plan in place to address it; otherwise, much-needed change is far less likely to happen,” said Ms Haig.

“Human brains are also hardwired to trust and believe things, facts, people, and brands that they are exposed to more often. They are impacted by stimuli they experience over time. To enhance trust in enterprise AI, use regular, frequent small stimuli (e.g. in emails, yammers, slack, meetings, mission statements) before, during, and after change to increase the inclination to adopt new ways of working.”

Easing employees into any new innovation is important so as not to alienate and worry them. Creating an inclusive culture starts with making staff comfortable. While new technologies are essential for progressing the workforce, being conscious of the current workforce is the key to healthy implementation.

The fear of the rise of AI was discussed by Avanade’s Stef Shoffren, who said that while jobs will be lost, just as many will be established as tech advances.

“There are a lot of organisations and people out there that fear that they may get put out of a job because of some of these new generative AI or ChatGPT technologies. But I would counsel that you don’t need to have that fear,” said Mr Shoffren.

“Some of the technology events that have happened in the past, the desktop PC, the internet, generative AI is equally as seismic a shift as one of those two events, and neither of those caused significant losses of jobs when it did happen.”