The Marriage of Man and Machine: Why the Success of AI depends on Humans.
The marriage between man and machine is more important than ever. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how we work, play and interact with one another. However, it is not just the technology that will shape the future of AI, it is the humans behind it. We are past the movie-portraying view of robots ‘taking our jobs’ or ‘taking over our world’ idea of artificial intelligence, and we accept that AI will play a significant role in the future. We need to embrace it, not for the sake of apathy or cost-efficiency but for the sake of innovation, growth, and evolution. More than that, it’s exciting. The technology we have is amazing, mind-blowing even, however AI is still in its infancy and there is a long way to go until it becomes truly human-like and before we can rely on it fully. For us to do that it would need to be better than a person, and it’s not there currently.
And far from making humans obsolete, AI will superpower humans to excel. That combination of humanity and technology is the real future of business. So, let’s explore why the success of AI depends on humans and how this union can be leveraged to create better solutions.
PEOPLEPOWER – THE FUTURE.
A people-based business has a culture that focuses on employees first, including customer relationships – the human element. And for such a business, people buy from people – that’s who they do business with. This is not going to change. AI will, however, enhance their ‘power’, allowing people-based companies to become more bespoke, more tailored; exceeding customer expectations and delivering a truly personalized experience. And that is where the critical advantage lies.
Allowing and embracing AI to do the hard work of data collection and analysis frees up your biggest asset – your people – to do what they do best. It provides the building blocks for better decision-making and problem-solving. It is the specialized intelligence to our generalized intelligence.
For Moneypenny, like many other people-based businesses, it provides a massive opportunity. Think of it like visiting a luxury hotel, where everyone knows what you like to be called, what paper you like to read over breakfast, how you like your eggs. We strive to be akin to that high- end concierge, the right-hand person worth their weight in gold that guests/clients simply cannot do without.
Rather than wait for the finished article, we know where the future is going, and we want to be a part of it. In adopting the technology early, we can fully understand it, and its potential. In using it as it advances, we are evolving alongside it, learning as the technology advances and making it a part of our future.
TECH ALONE IS NOT THE ANSWER.
The perfect marriage is that of people and technology. Technology is the enabler, but only when it is combined with the right people to adopt it properly and accelerate and escalate it. but only when it is combined with excellent people will it produce a first-class customer service. The challenge of business is to figure out the perfect combination of AI and people to produce that outstanding service every time. Using automation is scalable for business. It will perform well under an ever-increasing workload. Without the humanity, however, it can become impersonal. There is a delicate balance to be found, and it is do-able with the right infrastructure and culture.
HOW HUMAN AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN WORK TOGETHER.
AI is here. And it is a certain part of the future. It may even change the way we do business forever. But we are not there yet. Today, we must adopt early, embrace the potential, and see the amazing places the journey could take us. There will always be an opportunity for those who follow the route of mass-produced automation. How many places (covering all hotel star-ratings) now offer a fully automated check-in service, embracing the technology to give customers what they want, with in-App check-in to fully online?
We have discovered this amazing technology and now businesses are looking to take it to the next level. Humans and AI have complementary strengths and weaknesses. While AI is extremely good at processing large amounts of data, humans can make decisions based on their experience, intuition and creativity. This creates an opportunity for the two to work together to achieve powerful results.
For example, AI can be used to automate mundane tasks, freeing up humans to focus on the more creative and innovative tasks. AI can also analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, providing humans with insights and actionable intelligence, leading to better decision-making together than either could make independently. What’s more, most recently, AI has been making leaps and bounds in its ability to not only solve complex problems but be creative. Adding voices of a certain artist or style to a song or recreating works of art. By leveraging the power of machine learning, AI is gaining the ability to generate new ideas and express them through music, art, and writing. The results, however, are heavily reliant on information quality from the inputter, the human. High-quality input results in high-quality output.
When working together, humans and AI can generate solutions that are both efficient and effective. For example, AI can help to find solutions to problems faster than humans can, while humans can use their expertise to refine the solutions generated by the AI to ensure they are appropriate.
In summary, the Marriage of Man and Machine provides a powerful opportunity for humans and AI to collaborate in ways that neither could do alone. By combining their complementary strengths, humans can leverage AI to amplify their own capabilities and work smarter. They are the ones that will accelerate the technology, make it scalable and send business on a sustainable growth trajectory whilst also doing better business.
