When the film Her came out in 2013, the idea that a human could form a relationship with an AI-powered assistant was hard to imagine, not to mention, a bit dystopian. 11 years later, AI tools aren’t replacing romantic partners (yet), but they are playing increasingly important roles in the workplace. In fact, researchers are shifting their perception of AI, from a tool to a collaborative team member. Research has found, however, that adding an AI teammate can reduce coordination, communication, and trust. Despite these challenges, many organizations are finding ways to incorporate AI into their operations without hurting team collaboration. Training and delineating how to use AI are key.
At Jotform, we’ve integrated AI into processes throughout every business function. It has transformed our team dynamics, improving communication and boosting productivity on tasks that matter. Here’s a closer look at how.
Project Management With No Need for Patience
Some say patience is a virtue, but in the context of team project management, patience is overrated. Bottlenecks destroy momentum and sap up motivation. There’s nothing worse than feeling inspired and energized, only to anxiously await a team member’s reply. Not to mention: precious time is wasted.
AI-powered task management tools can transform typical team project dynamics by eliminating many of the dependencies that tend to stall progress. For example, if you’re a manager, using an AI-driven project management tool can give you insight into an employee’s workflow without having to ask. AI tools can find ways to save time and boost collective productivity.
Consider a work management platform like Asana: its AI features can suggest the next steps in a project, flag potential bottlenecks, and generate insight into a team’s workload and productivity. It’s like having an extra team member dedicated to analyzing and improving the logistics, so the human team members can focus on more meaningful tasks.
Streamlining Research and Information Sharing
An attorney friend once told me about the legal research course she completed during law school. In those days, legal research leaned heavily on specialized search engines, and unsurprisingly, it took nearly an entire semester to master the art of utilizing them effectively.
Today, AI-powered tools like ChatGPT are transforming the way we do online research. Given its capacity to streamline research and information sharing, it makes sense that ChatGPT is replacing common search engines for fast-paced teams.
With ChatGPT, you can use natural language to refine your research questions and access the results you need faster. ChatGPT can near-instantly summarize lengthy research articles, reports, and data sets. Sometimes, these documents will require your full attention. But when you just need the key points, you can delegate the comprehension task to ChatGPT and distribute the insight to your teammates.
Let’s say you’re looking for a solution and don’t know where to start. ChatGPT can be a helpful tool in the brainstorming process, generating ideas and alternative approaches for you and your team members. No more staring at a blank page waiting for inspiration to strike. For example, one of our teams was creating content about Gen Z in the workplace and needed a quick overview of the leading trends. ChatGPT helped get the ball rolling, leaving our team members with more energy to dedicate to choosing and developing the best content strategy.
When you use AI tools to generate and research ideas, you make more time for creative thinking and considering other team members’ diverse perspectives. In the era of AI, this is the work that defines successful employees and organizations.
Making Meetings Count
Meetings can be a time suck. In a recent survey of 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents, 78% of the respondents said they’re expected to attend so many meetings that it’s hard to get their work done. Meetings can also be exhausting. In the same survey, 76% said they felt drained on days when they had a lot of meetings.
I’m a proponent of keeping meetings to a minimum and slashing unnecessary status updates. I want employees to have large swaths of time to dedicate to work that energizes them. They need ample time to enter the “flow” mode. But when it comes to essential meetings, I want everyone to be able to give their full attention. That’s where AI-powered automation tools come into play, to listen and transcribe meeting notes and ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Our teams integrate an AI speech recognition app directly into our video conferencing platform. Meeting notes are automatically saved as text in a Google document. If later, one of the attendants needs to recall something discussed in the meeting, it’s just a quick Google Drive search away.
This simple AI tool enables us to focus our attention on the actual content of the meeting, rather than the tedious task of notetaking. When we’re fully present, we have richer conversations, better ideas, and find better solutions—an example of how AI fosters collaboration and innovation.
Coordinating schedules
One of the beauties of AI is its ability to automate your communication—and your peace of mind. Scheduling is another realm where time and energy tend to be needlessly lost. With AI scheduling tools, you can skip the tedious back and forth trying to coordinate multiple calendars, aka low-value communication, and never worry about forgetting to pencil an event in your calendar. The short-term memory stores an average of seven pieces of information at any given time. Why waste that precious space on a meeting time and date when an AI tool can handle that for you?
AI-powered tools like Clara use natural language processing to set up meetings and negotiate times with meeting participants. You can integrate it into your email and calendar, and set up notifications and follow-ups. Clara can offer insights into your email conversations to manage your schedule more effectively.
With Clara and similar AI scheduling tools, everyone in your organization, from new hires to C-suite, can have a personal assistant, freeing them to focus on more important work. In that sense, it’s hard not to fall for AI. You might say that Her isn’t so far-fetched after all.
Credit: Source link
