This is the first article in our 10-part series on the key questions posed by CHROs and senior HR leaders about AI implementation. The series explores the implications for work, talent, trust, ethics, regulation and human connection. Each article stands alone, and together they build a practical view of what responsible, commercially useful AI adoption requires. In the interests of transparency and openness the data sources for all ten articles are provided at the end of each article.
Key points:
- AI’s best ROI comes from utilisation to take on time consuming data processing activities. Efficiency gains are fast, visible and measurable.
- Productivity is the headline benefit, with early users already reporting better speed, creativity and quality.
- The value of Generative AI (a subset of artificial intelligence that can autonomously create new content) lies in workflow redesign, not isolated tools or experiments.
- The main blockers to effective utilisation of AI are integration, data, security, cost and skills.
- The role of CHRO is transformation, requiring close collaboration with CIOs, CTOs and CFOs to embed AI into the operating model.
- The prize is competitive advantage; the risk is another costly IT failure.
There is a fear that a failure to get the AI solutions right will lead to a severe and potentially irreversible competitive disadvantage. This is understandable. There are many deployments of IT systems that have promised significant savings and increases in speed of response only to be overbudget, underwhelming and hugely demoralising and costly for employees, customers and suppliers. However the drive toward operational efficiency using AI is already yielding tangible results for early adopters. For example, according to Gallup, among employees who regularly utilise AI tools, 45 percent report significant improvements in their personal productivity, while 26 percent note enhancements in creativity and innovation. 23 percent report an increase in the overall quality of their output.
The deployment of these technologies is not uniform; according to Louis Columbus, citing Gartner, it is highly targeted toward specific, high-friction operational functions where cost savings and productivity boosts can be rapidly quantified. Over the next twelve to eighteen months, generative artificial intelligence is projected to boost overall enterprise productivity by 22.6 percent, a figure that significantly outpaces both projected revenue growth (15.8 percent) and anticipated cost savings (15.2 percent). Generative AI is AI that creates new content, such as text, images, code, audio or video, by learning patterns from large datasets and generating responses to user prompts. Unlike traditional AI, which mainly analyses or classifies information, it produces original outputs based on probability. Despite these promising functional use cases, severe structural barriers remain. Typically these are issues associated with technical implementation and systems integration, followed closely by the difficulty of recruiting talent and prohibitive infrastructure costs. Many organisations report severe difficulties in integrating generative tools with legacy technology stacks. Complex data privacy and security architecture also prevent broader adoption.
Addressing these barriers and hurdles means CHROs need to collaborate closely with CIOs, CTOs and CFOs to ensure AI deployments are not isolated solutions, but deeply embedded systems that enhance continuous, enterprise-wide workflows. When these functional leaders collaborate, technological integration transforms from a localised IT project into a holistic business reinvention.
However, history is littered with very expensive IT implementation failures. It’s easy to say “collaboration is essential” but in our experience this is very hard to achieve. It requires a leadership team that sees itself as collectively running the business rather than a collection of functional leads coming together periodically. Easy to say, harder to do, rarer to find.
Quite clearly, AI at its best is a turbo charger attached to each and every leader and expert enabling them to do more, faster and crucially, better. We are in the midst of an impending cultural and capability revolution.
Questions you may want to think about:
- Does your organisation deploy AI as another capability in the suite of current tools, or, is it an integrated part of the organisation operating model?
- Who is leading the ‘use case’ thinking on AI? Is this in the right location?
- How do you create organisational pull for AI and move beyond ‘Technology’ pushing AI as a solution?