AI isn’t just a buzzword anymore; it’s a game changer for both business and personal growth, offering new ways to streamline processes, analyze data, and source useful information.

It’s no secret that there’s been an enormous amount of discussion around how AI will be used in businesses, whether it’s effective or reliable, and if it will replace human workers. A Gallup study found that 22% of workers worry that AI will render their jobs obsolete, causing significant concern about their long-term career paths.

While AI is projected to contribute $15.7 trillion dollars to the global economy by 2030, a significant amount of that contribution is expected to come from increased productivity of workers. Today, we’ll discuss how AI is transforming the future, why it won’t replace skilled professionals, and how businesses and employees alike can leverage it to the fullest.

This post is based around our recent webinar “AI: Transforming the Future; Demystifying Emerging Competencies” with expert Jeremi Bauer. Bauer is the Dean of the Dr. Wallace E. Boston School of Business at American Public University.

What is AI?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ultimately just a probability machine. You can take a prompt and put it into generative AI, for example, an algorithm will look for the highest probable response, starting with the first word, sentence, and paragraph that makes the most sense.

On an operational level, AI is often used for the following:

• Data analytics
• Predictions and forecasting
• Object categorization
• Natural language processing
• Predictive recommendations

AI systems do learn and improve through vast amounts of data exposure, and are incredibly talented at detecting patterns that may be difficult even for skilled humans to catch.

How is AI Used by Businesses

AI is still a relatively new technology, and many businesses are still determining how to best use it to improve productivity. A 2023 study from the U.S. Census Bureau Survey found that only 3.8% of American businesses were using AI to produce goods and services, though businesses in industries like the information sector had higher adoption rates.

Businesses may utilize AI for the following benefits:

• Increased productivity
• Reduce human error that can occur with manual work
• Streamline processes
• Quickly analyze large data sets
• Source new information quickly
• Generate ideas
• Create resources

Specific use cases will vary depending on an organization’s industry and department. Let’s look at a few examples.

Marketing and Sales

AI is commonly being used by marketing and sales teams for a variety of purposes, including:

• Establish customer segments based on factors like preferences, purchasing behaviors, and demographics to improve targeting.
• Choose the most effective marketing strategies, platform, and messaging.
• Generate content and ideas for personalized marketing campaigns.
• Offer accurate product and service suggestions for each customer.
• Create sales presentations to help convert customers.

Netflix is a great example. They analyze your viewing history, including ratings, time spent watching specific shoes, and how many times you rewatched or continued content. They then offer personalized recommendations in the app and even send emails to customers when new shows or movies drop that fit their interest profile.

Ops and Supply Chains

There is an enormous amount of data and logistics that go into ops and supply chain operations. AI use cases may include:

• Forecast demand based on historical sales, market trends, and external factors, allowing you to prepare with the right inventory, staffing, and equipment levels.
• Identify potential user interest and ensure that products are as accessible to customers as possible, with short shipping times.
• Determine ideal inventory levels for both raw materials and finished goods, allowing manufacturing operations to invest their funds wisely.

Toyota, for example, leverages manufacturing AI to analyze sales data, production schedules, and supply chain information. This allows them to accurately forecast demand for their vehicles.

Finance and Accounting

Financial and accounting organizations may use AI for the following uses:

• Detect potential fraud or identity theft issues.
• Automate routine tasks like data entry, invoice processing, and reconciliation.
• Generate financial reports.
• Input and track expenses.
• Match invoices with purchasing orders and receiver reports to speed up approval processes.

General Electric, for example, uses AI to streamline accounting processes. Specifically, they use AI-powered optical character recognition software, which scans and extracts data from multiple documents like invoices, receipts, and bank statements. This can reduce manual data entry errors and speed up processes.

Product Development and Innovation

Product development and innovation teams might use AI in the following ways:

• Optimize product designs by effectively analyzing customer preferences, market trends, and manufacturing constraints.
• Assess manufacturing processes or materials to optimize product design for an ideal balance of performance, cost, and appeal.
• Enhance products based on extensive customer and manufacturing data.
• Offer instant product customization options for select products, with dynamic pricing.

Zara is a great example. They use AI to analyze social media, blogs, and online reviews to identify the latest trends in fashion, identify market gaps, and respond quickly with new product lines. AI can analyze popular hashtags, competitor mentions, customer feedback, and even images of trending styles.

HR Management

HR teams and company management may use AI to do the following:

• Optimize scheduling of employee hours to balance staffing requirements and employee availability requests, minimizing overtime.
• Understand employee preferences, costs, and skills.
• Assess employee and team performance data to provide insights, identify training opportunities, and find standout employees.
• Provide personalized development plans based on individual employee performance and goals.

Google, for example, uses AI to collect and analyze performance data. This allows them to create personalized development plans for their employees, fostering continuous growth, and identify high-potential employees for talent development purposes.

Challenges & Considerations with AI

While there are plenty of valuable use cases for AI, it’s also imperative that businesses consider current challenges and limitations of the technology as it currently exists. These include the following:

• High data quality and quantity requirements. AI requires a large amount of high quality data. If there’s “unclean” or outdated data, inconsistencies within it, or not enough data, there isn’t enough there to accurately train AI.
• Shortages in talent. There’s currently a high demand for professionals that have the skill sets to use AI. There’s intense competition with increased salaries for people who know how to use these tools to improve organizations and their processes, but finding that talent can be challenging for businesses.
• Discomfort with using the technology. Individuals may feel uncomfortable with using AI, both because it’s new technology and because it can feel unusual to “talk” to a machine.
• Data privacy and security. Users need to be careful what information they’re putting into most AI models; in some cases, that information will be used behind the scenes to train the AI software, so you want to avoid personal identifying information or proprietary company data.
  Keep in mind that paid AI tools claim to be more accurate and faster, but they don’t all protect sensitive data. Tools like Microsoft’s Copilot, however, allows businesses to use AI tech to assess branded content by placing a firewall around the data you use as an organization member. This protects the data you share from being used in future models.
• Company policies. Your organization may have company policies that restrict AI usage, particularly around data privacy and security.
• Data accuracy: There are significant concerns around data accuracy with AI software, especially when using generative tools. Double checking facts and reviewing all AI-generated content for accuracy and nuance is critical.

Will AI Replace Workers?

While AI clearly does have limitations that can present challenges, many workers are concerned that it may still overtake their jobs— either now or in the future.

So will AI actually replace workers?

The general consensus is no, AI will not replace people in the workplace. It will only always have similar limitations, and there are already clear challenges with the current technology. While AI’s ability to analyze a complex dataset is quickly, for example, you still need human professionals to double check the analysis, look for nuance, and create an actionable plan based on AI’s findings.

It is, however, possible that workers who have strong competencies in AI skills may be replaced— or at least excel past— those who don’t. As a result, upskilling in AI technology may help employees gain a competitive edge.

Guidelines to Using AI

Using AI can feel unnatural at first, and even a little awkward; it can also be difficult to always trust what AI says, as the technology isn’t infallible. These tips, however, can help you feel more comfortable and get better results:

• Act as if you’re speaking to a person. Begin with “hello” and end with “thank you,” as it can help you feel more comfortable with the process.
• Be natural. Most AI tools are trained to understand conversational commands, allowing you to start a “dialogue” for better end results.
• Give context. Consider telling AI “I am a marketer looking to create new campaign ideas. What information do you need from me.” In many cases, AI will tell you, and it can improve your end results.
• Don’t accept all AI content at face value. In many cases, AI can be wrong. Use critical thinking to assess everything from generated content to data analysis; you never want to rely too much on fallible software.

Final Thoughts

AI isn’t futuristic anymore— it’s a technology that businesses in many industries are at least considering how to leverage right now. It can be a potentially powerful tool for both business and professional growth, offering opportunities to streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and find incredible patterns in complex data.

Individual employees can use AI to enhance their decision making, optimize processes, create resources, and even improve customer experiences. The use cases are endless, and just require a little creativity and some critical thinking.

Want to learn more about how AI is transforming the workplace? Watch the full webinar here.