The AI Balancing Act: How Leaders Can Walk the Transformation Tightrope
Dive into expert insights on navigating the intricate landscape of artificial intelligence deployment.
In this article, Jeremy Rafuse, vice president of GoTo, delves into the essential elements of successful AI implementation, from fostering open communication to addressing shadow AI usage and fortifying cyber defenses.
The arrival of disruptive technologies like AI has thrown businesses and IT leaders into a loop. After the last few years of rapid digital acceleration, organizations’ last need is to misstep and fall off the proverbial transformation tightrope.
According to a June 2023 McKinsey report, AI is one of the fastest-adopted technologies today, set to add up to $4.4 trillion of value to the global economy annually. Still, it’s also one of the most controversial. It’s undeniable that AI boasts significant potential. However, its use and understanding are still in the early stages, which means organizations must err on the side of caution without falling behind and losing pace with competitors.
AI strategy needs to be a careful balancing act. From business objectives and employee roles to security and ethics, there are a multitude of factors IT leaders must consider (and juggle) to be successful today.
Effective AI Begins and Ends With Communication
AI isn’t just hype — it has the potential to transform our personal and professional lives and spur the world’s next major technological revolution. However, with so much promise and praise surrounding this technology, human workers must know there’s still a place for them within their organizations. Although economists predict that AI will create 97 million jobs, overall uncertainty and the fear of job displacement continue to weigh heavily in workers’ minds.
Rushing AI adoption without explaining the ‘why’ behind the push or considering employee sentiment can hurt workplace culture and morale and, in turn, business results. Communication, especially in the early phase, is key — how the tool will bolster efforts across functions must be explained. For example, if you’re a CIO, show your IT teams how AI can streamline mundane and manual tasks, such as writing scripts or processing customer queries, freeing time for more meaningful projects and interactions.
It’s up to technology and business leaders who are driving the implementation to provide reassurance and underscore how AI cannot replace the unique value, insight, and experience that human workers bring. Ultimately, humans and AI should complement one another to ensure accuracy, encourage productivity, and better serve the organization.
One of the most important roles of a great leader is enabling staff development and growth, ensuring your teams are better prepared to be successful as they navigate their careers. Effectively communicating the importance of AI as an unavoidable force and providing teams with opportunities to learn these new skills is critical and helps leaders further foster the value of humans overseeing AI tools.
See More: Why You Need a Data Fabric for Effective AI
Shine a Light on Shadow AI
Touted as the key to unlocking efficiency; so it’s no surprise that ChatGPT is popular among busy workers. With 57% of American workers having dabbled with the chatbot already, automation tools will inevitably continue to permeate the workplace. To squash risk and misuse, some companies, such as JPMorgan, have banned or restricted the use of ChatGPT, but bringing down the hammer on all AI may backfire in the long run.
At the end of the day, many employees will use these tools, with or without permission. But with sensitive and proprietary information at stake, turning a blind eye certainly isn’t the solution. Shadow IT isn’t a new issue; it’s been a pain point for IT pros for decades, so ‘shadow AI’ is nothing more than a new-world iteration of an old-school problem. With that in mind, leaders considering AI must create guidelines that strike a realistic balance between empowering employees to use the available applications and preventing unauthorized use.
The best policies for mitigating insider risk will contain direct parameters around shadow AI and be highly specific about what information can be shared and where covering the necessary regulatory compliance bases. Leaders designing these policies also need to consider behavioral and situational factors, such as new ways of working and reduced visibility into employee activity in today’s remote and hybrid working world.
To reap the benefits of AI, IT teams should foster a culture of digital literacy and education. Employees who lack basic AI training and awareness could make careless but detrimental mistakes, such as failing to recognize incorrect information generated by AI, leading to inaccuracies. An open dialogue is the game’s name — workers need to know how to interact with AI software and tools to serve their individual needs and the organization’s goals. Creating an AI “sandbox” for employees to play with and better understand the technology is a great way to enable this learning and potentially reduce the use of shadow AI.
But First, Build up Your Cyber Defenses
Protecting your organization from internal misuse is only one piece of the security pie. Today, the pace of innovation is faster than ever, and with every new technology comes a new class of threats for business leaders to be weary of — and AI is no exception. Even if your organization has not yet adopted AI, you can be sure that hackers have. It can be daunting to deal with malicious actors lurking in the digital unknown, it’s an essential part of protecting your systems and data and staying on track for reaching business goals.
Generative AI is making scams easier to believe than ever. In a 2023 McAfee survey by Amy Bunn, 70% of respondents said they weren’t sure they could discern a cloned voice from the real thing. Worryingly, the weaponization of AI-manipulated digital content, such as imitation scams and deepfake videos, is rising – particularly through mobile devices.
It’s incumbent on technology leaders to acquaint employees with cybersecurity education and refresh antiquated training to account for today’s expanding vulnerability landscape. AI is taking phishing and scamming to a whole new level, and with employees inputting large amounts of data across personal and professional devices on a daily basis, they need to know what to watch out for and the harm that a security incident can cause.
Additionally, organizations must ensure they have security controls that serve a digital-first world. Protocols such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and zero trust security, which takes a ‘trust nothing, verify everything’ approach, are essential for safeguarding data and countering unwanted actors.
Today, AI is impossible to ignore. Its rapid evolution has resulted in an unstoppable snowball effect, and soon enough, we can expect these tools to pervade more aspects of our daily and professional lives. As immensely helpful as AI may prove in efficiently taking care of technical work, gradual and strategic implementation—and staying aware of its risks and rewards—will be key to walking the transformation tightrope.
What essential steps has your workplace taken to overcome the challenges of AI deployment? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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