You can’t have AI without HI – Human intelligence

The noise around artificial intelligence (AI) has reached fever pitch. Organisations of all sizes and across all industries, are keen to tap into the potential benefits of AI – whether that’s increasing productivity, reducing costs, or freeing up employees to focus on more revenue-generating tasks.

Of course the promise of AI is much to be excited about. But there is also a danger of dismissing the importance of any organisation’s most important asset: its people.

“The human factor is central to any successful AI deployment”, says Foyaz Uddin, Head of Data & Digital Advisory Services, Forvis Mazars. “That’s because AI excels at processing enormous amounts of data and performing specific tasks, but it is Human Intelligence that brings adaptability, emotional understanding, and the ability to think creatively across a range of scenarios.”

Humans also understand nuance and context in ways that AI cannot. This emotional and social intelligence plays a crucial role in human decision-making and problem-solving.

The high value of human intelligence

A Pulse survey by Forvis Mazars of 300 C-suite leaders explored C-suite leaders’ levels of preparedness for AI, as well as indicators of progress and performance. It found that public and investor perceptions are driving AI adoption, alongside fear of being left behind.

However, the survey also highlighted that enterprise leaders are concerned about the impact of AI on their workforce.

70% are concerned that clients will lose access to human expertise. There is also a high degree of concern around the need to reskill employees, a possible reduction in workforce numbers and a forced change to their operating model.

Indeed, an often-cited benefit of AI is its ability to automate time-consuming and repetitive manual processes. (The boring stuff if we’re being honest.) But there are many tasks that still require essential human intelligence skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and empathy.

That’s why most leaders believe AI can only perform with human intelligence. They recognise that success requires human analysis and insight, alongside creativity and imagination, and human industry-specific expertise.

The value on creativity can’t be ignored, for example. AI can generate content based on recombining existing data in new ways rather than generating novel ideas from scratch. But human creativity involves emotions and abstract thought. Creativity also often involves breaking established patterns – as demonstrated by the world’s most successful, and importantly disruptive, companies that have created new frameworks for thinking.

Businesses fail to reach their growth potential when they are tied to the idea that there’s only one way to interpret or approach a situation or challenge. It doesn’t matter how data-rich you are as an organisation; real value comes from human intelligence. HI allows for creative thinking when addressing challenges – and for employees to act on their findings, which keeps the organisation moving forward.

Elsewhere, HI allows organisations to adapt quickly to the unexpected. Unlike AI, humans can generalise from limited data, learn from just a few examples, and adapt to new situations more effectively. As an obvious example, human intelligence played a huge role in helping businesses pivot to new ways of working during the Covid-19 pandemic. Change is inevitable in the business world, and HI is vital to adapting to it.

The human contribution to the workplace

As we’ve learned from the Pulse survey, there is trepidation around the impact of AI on the workforce. Therefore, any organisation looking to harness the power of AI needs to demonstrate that the technology is there to support employees – by handling more routine processes, for example – which enables them to focus on higher-value work.

For example, people in the UK spend nine minutes on the phone every year talking to GP receptionists – adding up to more than 4,000 years of time spent on those calls. But by automating 90% of such routine inquiries and bookings, up to 320 million patient contacts could be handled more efficiently. This isn’t about replacing all human interaction. It’s about using AI and automation to handle repetitive, administrative tasks, so staff can focus on the more difficult problems

Leaders must be transparent about their plans for AI and connect proposed AI initiatives to human intelligence. This will help reassure employees who fear AI will replace them, and help them see how their role will evolve alongside AI as the nature of work changes.

To summarise, humans bring to work a type of intelligence that AI cannot match. AI undoubtedly holds great potential for the future of work, but organisations will only reap its benefits when it is deployed hand-in-hand with human expertise and experience.

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