The AI Organization

Chapter 4. The People Transformation: Bringing AI to Every Employee

We’ve explored the first two stages of the transition to an AI organization: transforming our technical departments, bringing AI to every application, then expanding to the business units, bringing AI to every process. But the ultimate realization of the AI organization comes when we go beyond those two steps and bring AI to every employee. Only when every employee is empowered with AI, only when every task performed by every person in the organization has been transformed with AI, can we finally say we have fully become an AI organization.

Think about other technology revolutions and how they went through the same process. Computers initially transformed the business processes in an organization, but the democratization of PCs for employees enabled a deeper transformation, in which every task performed by the employees was augmented or redefined with a computer. The same thing happened with the internet: it allowed departments and employees to consume services directly from technology providers for specific tasks such as project planning, collaboration, or digital marketing. Mobile devices have also ended up being part of the employee toolset, transforming the IT landscape with the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). When the technology is democratized for every employee, every task they perform can be rethought entirely—and the AI transformation will be no different.

The Birth of the Citizen Data Scientist ...