5 Ways AI Can Transform Leadership

Artificial Intelligence is expected to bring massive changes to the workforce. From automating routine tasks to revolutionizing customer experiences, the discussion is now at a fever pitch. We look at how AI could help senior leadership, aiding strategic decision-making that’s at the very heart of a successful enterprise.

For companies and emerging business leaders, decision-making is that critical make or break test. Even experienced leaders who come with a track record of sound judgment, are sometimes flummoxed by a complex situation. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to make a radical transformation across businesses and industries, leaders are eager to understand if AI can actually make a difference for them.

Also read: Artificial Intelligence: Coming Soon To An Office Near You. Or Is It?

While ultimately any decision or choice made by a business leader is a matter of expertise, experience, and the right call in that specific situation, there are several areas where AI could lend a helping hand.

Predictive capabilities

Data mining is now a popular approach as businesses use predictive analytics for smart decision making. Predictive analytics helps a company anticipate future events and trends by studying historic datasets. Further, AI is powered by machine learning, where every platform, software, or application gathers insights from incoming data, adapts to emerging trends, and gradually begins to respond to emerging trends. This helps leaders across several key areas:

1. The ability to assess cost-effectiveness and ROI potential
2. The opportunity to optimize the buyer’s journey through sustained consumer behavior analysis
3. The chance to reduce customer churn rates
4. Space to correctly evaluate the success ratio of set goals

Also read: Predictive HR Technologies – What do you Gain?

Reducing decision fatigue

Several psychological studies suggest that when business leaders have to make multiple decisions across the day, there is an inevitable dip in energy which thereby increases the likelihood for wrong choices. An algorithm, however, doesn’t suffer from any such human predicament. Instead, it can make an infinite number of decisions with zero error or lack of judgment. As a result, executives can streamline their decision-making process through AI and machine learning.

Solutions such as GRI’s Envision is built specifically for this purpose. Envision is a workforce decision analytics platform that uses data from vendor management systems and other structured/unstructured systems. These are then processed by advanced analytics, in real time. “We’re providing our clients descriptive, prescriptive, and predictive analytics in the moment.  Envision’s integrated data science tools and neural machine learning models mean that our data is fresh – and that means our clients have a definite advantage,” says Salema Rice, CDO for GRI.

Multitasking

Senior leadership is always looking at the bigger picture, even as they continually must take a call on a variety of issues, each one different from the other. This often leads to value creation in one area where others are neglected. A machine, on the other hand, can absorb vast quantities of data and is guided by algorithms that reflect the probability of a specific choice — recommending the most logical course of action.

Further, as Sagi Eliyahu Co-founder and CEO at Tonkean adds, AI will also free up much of a senior manager’s time for more strategic initiatives — “Let’s face it. People don’t like doing the same thing over and over. It burns us out and makes us hate our jobs. When we hate our jobs, we don’t work very hard and make mistakes which, in turn, decreases productivity. With AI, more routine functions can be automated, taking them off of our shoulders so we can be more action-oriented and creative in our workdays. Eliminating as much mundane activity as possible will drive greater job satisfaction and lead to greater productivity.” Tonkean uses AI to automate workflows, easing pressures on already-strained business leaders and decision-makers.

Refining human judgment

Also read: The Human Factor – Why Emotional Intelligence is Critical for the AI Generation

There’s no doubting the fact that human, logical, prudent, and pragmatics thinking is irreplaceable. However, AI equips business leaders with hard evidence, possible outcomes, and predictions, which ultimately help them make informed, well thought-out, and data-driven decisions.

Deciding on best-fit talent acquisition

Hiring leaders and recruitment managers must go through a vast number of resumes, selecting best-fit candidates. Today, AI and automation can offer tremendous support by automating iterative tasks, sifting through hundreds of CVs, analyzing applicant sentiment, and digging out enough information to understand who fits in best with organizational culture, and carries the set of skills and competencies to fill the organization appropriately.

There are a number of digital tools for this, starting from Bruhat Insights Global which uses AI to prevent ghosting (where confirmed candidates ‘ghost’ after accepting the offer) to Phenom People, a popular AI-based solution covering the entire hiring pipeline, including CRM and internal hires.

Also read: 5 Must-have HR Competencies for the 21st Century

A final word

These are exciting times for companies across the board. Technology empowers and augments the most common work scenarios. For business leaders, AI can prove to be a great tool and a resilient support system, helping them make the right choices, propelling a company forward in-line with the larger business objectives.