As employers adopt AI, workers care and seek information

TSwedish buy now, pay later company Klarna has become something of a poster child for the potential benefits of generative artificial intelligence. The company relies on AI to create and personalize promotional images and write marketing copy, saving millions of dollars. Earlier this year, the company said an AI chatbot assistant was doing the work of 700 human customer service agents, which it predicted would increase profits by $40 million this year.

Klarna’s approach highlights the promise of generative AI to power enterprise systems such as customer service. It is also helping individual workers with some of the tasks that make up their daily work.

US companies are investing in AI and are eager to see these gains. So far, the tools cover some of a worker’s tasks, saving time but without significantly impacting the overall business. They can, for example, help computer programmers work faster or save human resources professionals time by having AI-powered chatbots answer colleagues’ questions about benefits.

To use AI as aggressively as an organization like Klarna, companies need to be comfortable with AI systems accessing sensitive data or interacting with their customers rather than a human. . “We defaulted on customers in a [generative] Experiment with an AI chatbot and they hated it,” said Josh Silverman, chief executive of Etsy, in a recent podcast. “It was one of the worst-performing experiments we launched during my entire tenure.” Silverman said the online marketplace has moved to make it optional for customers to interact with the chatbot, but even that will likely cost Etsy some sales.

Then there is the impact on workers. Polls indicate that most Americans are anxious about the possibility of AI reducing the quality and quantity of jobs. In surveys, workers say they want their organizations to communicate with them about how AI is being used and how it will impact their jobs; receive training on new tools; and be involved in discovering how to use AI in their companies.

Technology and finance companies are among the most advanced. Accenture, for example, last year developed a customized version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help employees write sales proposals. The professional services firm involved its proposal writers in designing and testing the tool and provided extensive demonstrations and training for the approximately 1,500 employees who used it. “If we can eliminate lower-value, time-wasting work, it will allow writers like me to be more valuable [with] things like strategic messaging,” said Sarah Szuminski, Accenture’s North America lead for writing such proposals.

IBM said it is ensuring that with AI-based systems, there is a “human in the loop” to make decisions, especially those that impact people. Humans screen each of the 5 million resumes IBM receives annually. Academic researchers have found bias in AI systems, with some tools recommending African Americans for less prestigious jobs.

If anything, the intense interest in generative AI has increased companies’ focus on the skills their employees bring. About 66% of business leaders surveyed by Microsoft and LinkedIn said they would not hire someone without AI skills. Companies are still figuring out what the key AI skills are. Some say having them will be as essential as basic online literacy was when the Internet first entered the workplace. Others say the ability to learn new things will be the most important skill.

They are also having to think about how younger workers get critical work experience when basic tasks can be performed by AI. Without these jobs, how do they learn a company’s judgment, values, and culture that are essential as they rise through the ranks?

There are no easy answers, but executives remain optimistic. “The problems [are] largely solvable,” said Etsy’s Silverman, referring to issues like the time it takes an AI chatbot to respond. “It’s important that we keep doing this, because we need to learn.”