play with artificial intelligence (ai)

literally: play with artificial intelligence (ai) in your organization, it will be the success of transformation

as the dates of the mobile world congress in barcelona approach, articles, blog commentaries, postgraduate announcements and alternative conferences about the relevance of artificial intelligence (ai) in organizations and how not to be left behind are, as expected, proliferating. interestingly, the message being used to capture the attention of professionals is not new: the use of data as a competitive advantage. the need for detailed and reliable analysis to improve.

data to make good commercial decisions, to select candidates, to improve processes, to generate complex content…. what is new, of course, is the speed of access, analysis and generation of possible alternatives. if the input data is good, accurate and well-informed… ai is unstoppable in our organization. whatever the size, whatever the sector.

ok. that’s true… but it sounds old-fashioned. it sounds like the introduction of efficiency and agility in isolation from the professionals.

well, not all professionals, of course. but the vast majority, those who will not see or feel the benefits of this new ai first hand, but who will eventually see their environment change… without really understanding why.

and here comes a new thought: how can we introduce ai at all levels so that its benefits are understood and its use accompanies in parallel the transformation of the business also with ai?

imagine the scene:

we come home tired after a hard day’s work. today, the company management told us about the upcoming digital transformation, about the paradigm shift we will experience with the implementation of a new system. agility and efficiency, they say. we will be able to do our work better and faster. we will be able to make decisions based on predictions generated by generative ai algorithms. our work will be easier and potentially more accountable. it will be a before and after, it will change the way we work and the way we relate to each other. we think, almost aloud, that we don’t quite understand how, but ok. It’s up to the management. when it’s our turn, we’ll see what’s true about it all….

we explain the meeting and our thoughts to our partner with some scepticism. we prepare dinner before selecting the latest episode of the latest series on our favorite digital platform. we feel we need to have some fun first. we grab our mobile phone and go to that new programe we saw in a recent article, the one that generates images with the text you type. we type: “pixar-like drawing of a fish happily singing with a microphone in a fishbowl that almost doesn’t fit”.

the result makes us smile. we think we wish that what we read in the newspaper, openia sora it’s called, could be tried out already, because it would be fun to see the fish moving and singing our favorite song. and we thought for a moment about why we wanted to see that image. but we didn’t think that the ai we were told about in the morning and the ai we were using at home could work together. we don’t think that the two ai’s can motivate us rationally and creatively, and that we can use them in our workplace to really accompany digital and cultural change.

why is that?

because although exhibitions (such as the one currently on show at the cccb on the origins, opportunities and challenges that ai can bring to society and to the scientific and business fabric) are bringing the concept closer to ordinary citizens, it seems that we are still on different levels when we talk about what ai actually is.

it is as if we are told that working on transversal processes will help the organization’s strategy. if they don’t explain it better, we will do our job and assume that the strategic plan is what “those at the top” do. it is not for us.

so, at this point, it’s worth remembering something that marion suffert of vasis conseil summed up perfectly during a talk on the evolution of data management that ai brings to organizations: “things are changed by individuals”.

if the individual, the professional, does not understand or does not agree with the change that ai offers in his or her workplace, directly or indirectly, he or she will not cooperate. and with good reason. so:

it is important to involve the individual in the transformation, from a place that understands it. because, let’s be honest, what percentage of the organization really knows what ai can do to support the transformation you’re looking for?

ai can revolutionize the way we work, but also the way we interact within the workplace. in particular, introducing ai in a playful format for presenting, posing and solving problems can increase team motivation, stimulate creativity and open up new ways of thinking and approaching challenges.

as an example, let’s remember our singing fish out of water. if we could share this image with our colleagues… what would they say? would they feel the same way? could we exchange views? what could we gain from this reflection?

at rational sparks we know, and we have already put it into practice (ask us how!), that it is necessary to integrate the description and business utility of ai (big data, machine learning, generative AI…) with the more social knowledge and use of its most popular tools (chat gpt, dall-e…) on what it means to use ai to improve the quality of our working lives. data analysis vs. creativity options. this is why we use artificial intelligence tools in our dynamics in a seemingly playful way… but with a specific purpose that can and must be integrated into the global reflection of transformation.

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