AI and the world of work: shaping change

Many organisations recognise the relevance of artificial intelligence. However, they cannot yet clearly assess its significance for strategy, business model, value creation, cooperation and leadership. Pilot projects, tools and technical initiatives emerge. There often remains a gap between the technological potential and the effect in the organisation. Employees and managers swing between euphoria, scepticism, feeling overwhelmed and waiting to see.

For top management, AI thus becomes a strategic leadership task. It is about more than technology: it is about competitiveness, productivity and the organisation's future ability to work.

Three terms are often confused. Technological transformation means the introduction of new technologies or the renewal of technical systems, processes and infrastructure. The use of AI solutions is part of this, as is a cloud migration or automation. It is usually driven by IT and aims at efficiency, scalability or modernisation. Digital transformation goes further. It covers the entire spectrum of business activities, including the business model and the strategic development of the company. It thus creates the basis for new products, digitalised processes or new digital business models.

Neither is the same as organisational transformation. This looks at the company as a whole and its strategic interrelationships. As a rule it is non-linear and reflexive. It considers not only the immediate occasion but also the way the organisation has previously shaped, observed and evaluated change. Conclusions for the next steps follow from this. Technological and digital initiatives are now often its trigger or an important part of it.

Which activity should change and what benefit is expected? These questions help to assess possible fields of application. The link to strategy makes visible why an application is relevant for the company and what expectations are associated with it.

Technological initiatives are often understood as projects that can be steered purely technically and largely linearly. This misconception leads to considerable acceptance problems in operations during introduction. New technologies reach into routines, decision paths, behaviour patterns, responsibilities and cultural imprints. AI changes decision processes, roles, competences, cooperation, leadership and productivity. The change process must therefore be broader in scope and integrated into the organisation.

When tasks are dealt with differently, roles, required capabilities and forms of cooperation can also change. Clarification therefore includes who uses the application, how results feed into further processes and which decisions are affected.

Changes must be anchored in organisation, leadership and culture. People development can build on the competences that will be needed in future. What support those involved need follows from the specific tasks and the starting situation.

New technologies and changing working environments increase the pressure on key roles. Many organisations recognise too late which competences they will need in future. Key positions are then not filled with foresight, and business-critical knowledge remains tied to individuals. It helps to define future competences explicitly and to build development paths that fit the future direction. People development works in close connection with strategy, organisation, leadership and culture.

The consulting assignment should name the organisational questions and the field of application to be worked on. Technical prerequisites and further specialist reviews are coordinated with it. In this way responsibilities, expectations and the next decisions can be clarified together.

Artificial intelligence is one of the developments that shorten the strategic half-life of established business models. Conditions are changing faster than many organisations can react. Individual change projects do not solve this problem. What is needed is the capacity to renew faster than markets and technologies change.

It starts with the search for realistic fields of application. This replaces vague expectations with specific initiatives. An obvious field is administrative processes in HR, where digitalisation and AI open up potential for automation. Added to this is anchoring in strategy, organisation, leadership and working environments. What is shaped is the productive interaction between people, technology and organisation. In this way individual projects become an organisational capability, and the company gains orientation and the ability to act in dealing with AI.

Technological change affects strategy, capabilities and organisational design. For AI, a clear assignment question can be derived from this: which specific work should change, which people are involved and which decision does the company have to make? This leads to questions about competences, responsibility and cooperation. Technological possibilities and organisational prerequisites must be considered separately. Those who want to assess an application should explicitly record the starting situation, the expected effect and the limits of the initiative.