Digital Ally: Unlocking Human Potential and Agility With Practical AI

In this article we discuss:

• Real-world examples of AI transforming teams
• AI’s role in elevating specialized functions
• Cultivating a future-ready workforce
• Building resilience and agility

Just like you, we’ve heard the fears that AI will replace humans across industries. But in our opinion, that’s just not the case. 

AI won’t—and can’t—replace skills that are unique to humans. Instead it will enhance the work we already do. There are examples of this happening already.

Smart organizations are increasingly realizing that practical AI adoption is the key to a more engaged, agile workforce. It amplifies human potential, empowering employees through tailored learning opportunities and data-driven insights that foster deeper creative exploration. 

When we thoughtfully bring AI into the workplace, it truly sparks innovation. It opens doors to strengthen our performance and drive business value. 

Let's explore practical insights and real-world examples of how AI is transforming work for the better and unlocking human potential.

Transforming Teams: AI in Action

Forward-thinking companies are using AI's potential to invest in their greatest asset—their people. Here are real-world examples showcasing how AI directly empowers teams and yields measurable business results.

Encouraging Employee Growth and Engagement

AI has proved instrumental in changing how companies engage employees, helping organizations retain skilled workers through personalized career development and support. 

For instance, Walmart enhances employee readiness with AI-powered VR simulations that allow staff to practice real-world scenarios in a safe, interactive environment. Additionally, their MyAssistant tool provides personalized support to all employees—from answering new hire questions to drafting emails—reducing friction and boosting efficiency. Their AI-VR program alone has boosted employee engagement by 10% and reduced staff turnover by 20%.

IBM uses its own AI tools—WatsonTalent and SkillsBuild—to analyze skills, goals, and performance data, then leverages them to recommend training for high-demand roles, democratizing access to crucial upskilling and ensuring a future-ready workforce. By helping employees grow, the company has reduced turnover and saved more than $100 million. 

Amplifying Human Creativity and Innovation

Beyond encouraging employee growth, AI is opening up exciting new avenues for human creativity and innovation. 

Companies like Heinz and Colgate-Palmolive have already tapped the power of generative AI to demonstrate brand recognition and gain new insights, but that’s just the beginning of what AI can enable humans to do. Artificial intelligence is strengthening human creativity in other ways. 

Biotech company Genentech is using AI and machine learning to revolutionize drug discovery. It allows their team to rapidly generate and simulate thousands of molecular structures for therapeutic targets to accelerate treatment development. 

And, the creative minds at the Walt Disney Company have tapped the technology to enhance marketing, improve park experience, and provide personalized recommendations across Disney’s streaming platform. The company has even used it to develop more responsive and lifelike animatronics.

Improved Efficiency and Customer Service

By now you’ve probably heard a lot about AI’s ability to automate burdensome processes, but this is about more than streamlining workflows.

Take JPMorgan Chase. Fraud detection can be a burdensome process, and even the best employees sometimes miss red flags. But the company found a solution. Working cross-functionally to develop and improve AI-powered fraud detection systems, data scientists, risk analysts, and compliance experts combined their expertise and coupled it with an AI solution to identify and reduce fraudulent activity by 15 to 20%. 

When the Aberdeen City Council in the UK used artificial intelligence to empower employees to streamline daily tasks, the positive impact rippled. Now, the council anticipates saving customers and taxpayers millions every year.

Both retailer H&M and Germany’s national railway Deutsche Bahn have enabled AI to improve their customer service. 

H&M saw a 25% increase in conversions and a three-times faster response rate after deploying an AI virtual assistant. It also streamlined operations and reduced the workload for human agents by 40%. And to improve its customer service, Deutsche Bahn used an AI-powered social customer service platform to increase processing time by 17%, leading to a 49% reduction in case handling time—a drop from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.

Elevating Specialized Functions 

Beyond the widely discussed impacts on major business functions, AI is making profound, high-impact contributions in highly specialized fields, often behind the scenes. Here, AI isn't just an assistant; it's a true force multiplier, empowering experts and accelerating breakthroughs.

In healthcare, AI is transforming everything from breast cancer screenings to medical devices.

Across the legal industry, firms use AI-powered tools to sift through enormous volumes of electronic documents for e-discovery, drastically cut time and costs, and meticulously analyze contracts for risks related to language, compliance, and non-standard clauses. 

In architecture, engineering, and construction, AI brings new levels of precision. It optimizes designs for efficiency and structural integrity and uses on-site sensors to monitor safety and progress in real time. 

And, AI is personalizing education, adapting to individual learning styles and providing tailored content and feedback. Online platforms use AI to identify weaknesses and provide targeted lessons, offering truly individualized support.

What these companies have done is found a way to drive AI adoption through everyday application. With AI acting as a sophisticated collaborative tool, teams can forge stronger bonds with each other and customers, drive sustainable innovation, and cultivate a resilient workforce.  

A Future-Ready, Empowered Workforce

Even if you follow the lead of these successful companies, to truly empower your team, it’s crucial to prepare people for a dynamic human-AI partnership. 

It’s essential that teams evolve skills to thrive in an AI-infused workplace. While human connection—creativity, empathy, and ethical judgment—remains irreplaceable, the future workforce will blend these core human attributes with essential technological literacies.

This evolving skillset includes:

• Uniquely human skills: Critical thinking to interpret AI's insights, creativity to innovate beyond AI's capabilities, empathy for leadership and customer interactions, and ethical decision-making to ensure responsible AI use.

• AI literacy: Understanding AI's capabilities, limitations, data processing, and potential biases to leverage tools smartly.

• Prompt engineering: The ability to craft clear, concise instructions to get the best output from generative AI.

• Collaboration: Fostering human-AI teaming, where individuals view AI as a partner to enhance their performance.

Cultivating this partnership demands a cultural shift: embracing lifelong learning, encouraging experimentation, and recognizing that tomorrow's most valuable skills will be those that empower our unique human contributions in an increasingly intelligent world. This focus ensures our workforce continuously adapts and thrives.

Building Resilience and Agility

Leading organizations are showcasing how artificial intelligence acts as a powerful force multiplier, enhancing our unique human capabilities and transforming the workplace for the better. 

By strategically adopting AI, companies like IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and Walmart are not just streamlining operations, but actively investing in their people, fostering growth, amplifying creativity, and improving efficiency across the board. 

The future of work isn't about AI taking over, but about thoughtfully integrating AI to empower individuals, developing an agile workforce, and building a more meaningful and innovative future.

Many SMBs see the benefits of AI, but only 7% are currently scaling their operations with it effectively. Learn how you can leverage AI to transform your business.