A Clear Vision or a Fuzzy Future? Navigating AI's Impact on Workplace [AI Ready] #1

AI is here, but is our resolution still blurry?

There's a term that's been entering my life's vocabulary since I started my own business. It's visioning, the act of envisioning the future and creating plans & strategies to get there. As you may know, the key to visioning is to have a high-resolution imagination.

Of course, not everything you imagine will come true, and you can't judge whether it's right or wrong at this point in time. But since most economic systems return to a mechanism of paying for future value, in business it matters who can envision that future with the most resolution first.

To start the conversation, let me throw out what resolution means, and there's a famous meme that gets right to the point.

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Childhood trauma is grotesquely resolved, yet I can't even remember what I ate yesterday. This meme illustrates the concept of resolution very clearly.

Speaking of AI, if you're wondering what I'm talking about, I have a question for you: is my imagination of the AI era more left or right? Have you ever thought specifically about how AI will change our lives?

My guess is that for many of you, the resolution is still fuzzy, like on the left. At best, it's the kind of “I won't need interns,” “I won't have to do paperwork,” or “I'll have a humanoid robot sitting next to me someday” that you hear in the media and from your community.

While the discussion of AI technologies is heating up, we still have a vague idea of what we need to prepare for. The more we can imagine with resolution, the better we can prepare and make decisions. In this four-part series, we'll provide clues to increase resolution around the AI-age workplace.

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Virtual Assistants:
A Bangkok Entrepreneur's Productivity Hack

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I'll start with a story that gave me a clearer picture of what's to come. Currently, I'm living in Bangkok, Thailand. I've been here for four months now, and personally, moving to such an international city after living in Korea all my life has been inspiring in so many ways. Personally, I'm learning a lot from my friends who have businesses here.

I got to know a Thai friend who is in the global real estate development business- he's always hanging out until dawn, then waking up around lunchtime to work for a while, and then hanging out with friends again in the evening. It's always been a mystery to me when he works and how he manages his business, and one day I asked him about it. He told me he had a secret: He uses a remote virtual assistant (VA).

“Don't you guys use a virtual assistant?”

A VA is someone who assists you remotely with business and daily tasks. It's a growing market overseas, with companies like FullybookedVA and Movevirtual offering such services. Finding a Filipino VA is fairly easy and affordable, especially if you work in English.

My friend told me that he's been working with a VA for a while now, so once he explains the purpose to her, she produces much higher quality work than he does. In fact, when I saw the presentations and documents produced by his VA, it was amazing. Usually, Filipino seniors who have worked in global companies do this a lot, so it's no surprise that they can produce really good results.

Another story that went viral on X (formerly Twitter) in April. The founder of an AI startup was visiting a Japanese restaurant in New York City when the cashier appeared on the screen. To his surprise, the cashier was Zooming in from the Philippines to pay the bill, and he said it was the nicest cashier he'd ever met in person in New York.

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What I noticed while viewing these two episodes is that the position that this virtual human resource is occupying now is a role that will be replaced by AI in the near future. The trust in contactless environments is so high that we can already exchange services with people we don't see face-to-face, and the pandemic has accelerated this change.

Imagine this: if non-face-to-face becomes so commonplace, wouldn't it be weird to see AI humans replacing remote humans in the not-too-distant future? In fact, it would be hard to tell the difference without being able to touch them. Particularly, if AI can deliver satisfactory results at a lower cost, users will likely become increasingly indifferent to the distinction. In the coming years, AI will be much more natural, and we will be less resistant to it.

I think the era of AI is also very close to being ubiquitous, certainly when you consider the companies that need to be more aggressive in anticipating and preparing for the future than individuals. We're already seeing global corporations across industries embarking on an intense AI transformation. It's not just organizations with AI expertise.

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What will the future of work with AI look like? (feat. Sanofi)

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You know Sanofi, the global pharmaceutical company that is projected to be the eighth largest biomedical company in the world by revenue in 2023. 

In a TED talk called Leadership in the Age of AI, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson declared in February that his goal is to “become the world's leading pharmaceutical company using AI at scale”. Sanofi already has 23,000 employees using AI every month and 9,000 employees using AI every day.

Paul Hudson shared a thought that should be applauded, especially by those of us who are buried in paperwork: it's not Excel, PowerPoint, or Word that people should be focusing on - insights and execution are what people should be working on. He emphasized that the goal of AI is to truly drive decision-making momentum and give companies an edge over the competition.

He also shared what he's learned from applying AI technology at scale in his organization, and what I found most interesting is how it changes decision-making structures and organizational culture.

‘Now the younger talents are saying, “you didn't see AI, old man.”’ -Paul Hudson, CEO @Sanofi

Nowadays, younger talents feel that they have more insight into AI than their elders, to the point where they want to report directly to the CEO rather than to their bosses. In response, Sanofi has flipped the traditional pyramid upside down and reconfigured it, bringing in a variety of people with two to four years of experience into meetings.

In the end, having an entire organization powered by AI implies a workplace that operates very differently than it does today, so much so that CEO Paul Hudson argues that a new generation of leadership is needed to build a workplace powered by AI technology.

How AI will change one of the biggest areas of our lives - the workplace - and Sanofi is already setting the bar high.

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Sneak peek: Talent wars and organizational paradigm shifts in the age of AI

Advances in AI technology aren't just changing the way we work, they're changing the way talent views organizations. In the next edition, we'll explore how companies are changing to attract talent in the AI era.

We'll look at the new paradigms of “innovation” and “trust and authority” that AI will bring. From stories of AI beer brewing to examples of organizational structures that AI has turned upside down, we'll use exciting cases to inspire your imagination.

What does the organization of choice look like for talent in the AI era? Stay tuned for the next two parts to find out.

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Next Post｜As AI Advances, Do Employers Rejoice? Is It True? [AI Ready] #2

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🔎 The Asker’s Lens

Guiding Questions to Move from Insight to Action

1. How clear is your picture of the AI era? Describe your vision in detail, and think about how you're preparing for the shift.

2. In a scenario where virtual assistants or remote workers are replaced by AI, what part of your life or work could be the first to be replaced by AI?

3. Given that AI can change the structure and decision-making process of an organization, as in the case of Sanofi, is your organization ready to embrace this change? What do you see as the biggest challenges?

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Written by : The Asker (Link)

Writer : Dana Jeong | CEO of nutilde‍