AI could improve team culture, report says

Dive Brief:

Implementation of AI may improve team culture, according to a Nov. 2 report from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group. More than three-quarters of managers surveyed said that AI improved team decision-making and efficiency.
The majority of managers also reported improvements in collective learning, team morale and collaboration. However, mistrust of AI can undermine these benefits, the report noted. Mistrust can stem from a lack of employee understanding of the tool, as well as providing too little or too much information about the tool and decision-making.
Notably, effective AI at the team level may not translate to overall financial success, the report said. While 58% of global execs surveyed said teams have improved in efficiency and decision-making quality, only 11% said they saw "significant financial benefits" from AI implementation.

Dive Insight:

AI has garnered some attention in the post-pandemic work world as a way to streamline processes and assist the return to work. IBM added capabilities to its workplace platform, IBM TRIRIGA, earlier this year to ease return-to-work operations, including dynamic space planning to assess social distancing, mobile-device enabled mapping to show which areas of an office may be crowded, and other tools to help ascertain space usage.

AI has also shown promise as a way to kickstart key workplace initiatives, particularly learning and development. AI can help such programs continually reinforce lessons and adapt to worker needs, according to a report from Axonify.

However, poorly designed use of AI can land employers in hot water. Algorithmic programs, especially those involved in hiring, can accidentally enforce bias if employers don’t take time to examine the data used by those algorithms, an EEOC official said at a conference earlier this year. If an applicant sorting algorithm uses data solely based on the current workforce, for example, an employer could enforce a lack of diversity across its teams.

Managing AI also comes with one particular trouble spot: a lack of talent. Demand for AI-related skill sets is high and the talent shortage is especially acute for those related jobs, a CompTIA review stated earlier this month.