What are the benefits and challenges of using AI-powered chatbots in team chat?

With the LLM capabilities from several vendors hitting the market, chatbots just became a lot easier to speak to. Dialogues can be planned out as before but the to and fro of conversations can be much more natural and not so rigid.

Benefits: 24/7 Availability: Chatbots provide instant assistance, enhancing productivity. Scalability: They handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, accommodating growing teams. Automation: Routine tasks like scheduling meetings are streamlined, saving time. Personalization: AI enables tailored responses based on user interactions, improving user experience. Challenges: Accuracy: Chatbots may misinterpret queries or provide inaccurate information. Training: They require ongoing training and refinement to maintain effectiveness. Integration: Ensuring seamless integration with existing systems and workflows can be complex. Privacy Concerns: Handling sensitive data raises privacy and security risks, requiring robust safeguards.

Privacy and confidentiality in a professional environment are at risk if you use a public AI chatbot. You should use a private AI model or one with clear terms of use. Also, the chatbot should not directly collect personally identifiable information or should obscure it before storing it anywhere.

AI chatbots still have many issues, and research is ongoing to understand how to better control the underlying LLMs (Large Language Models). They can also be quite expensive if used by many people. The main problem remains inaccuracy—there's no way to 100% guarantee the accuracy of the data provided by these chatbots, at least with the current state of technology.

Many legacy repositories of business data that might be a source for chatbots are not in a fit state to be used. Permissions might not be applied to sensitive info correctly. Incorrect or outdated content might be included. In some cases there might be out of context user comments, easily spotted by humans but happily taken as accurate by chatbots. This shouldn't be news to implementors of the technology, it has always been the case that garbage in = garbage out. As some organisations rush ahead in the early hype cycle of LLMs the old lessons can be forgotten.

Oversharing and duplicates can be a problem when users of AI-powered chatbots are careless with confidential information. It is important for users to understand and adhere to the guidelines for using the chatbot to ensure that confidential information is not accidentally shared. Data governance plays a crucial role in ensuring that data is properly managed, protected, and used, helping to minimize the risk of data loss, leaks, and misuse, and ensuring compliance with regulations and standards. It is important for companies to implement data governance policies and train their employees to ensure that data is used safely and responsibly.

Additional benefits with AI: The adoption of AI is essential for companies to remain competitive and attractive as an employer in a war for talent. By leveraging AI, companies can improve their business processes, enhance their innovation capabilities, and gain a competitive edge. This technology also helps companies attract top talent by providing a modern and technologically advanced work environment. It is important for companies to invest in AI adoption, including governance, technical preparation, training, and change management, to fully realize the benefits of this technology.