CIONET Member on: Why do we need AI in the Office? It`s about reduction of complexity, stupid!

Why do we need AI in the Office? It`s about reduction of complexity, stupid!

We are facing a wave of new AI tools preceded by but certainly not ending with Chat GPT. It is not yet even the tip of the iceberg, but a logical transition step in the ongoing industrialization of the world of work through digital tooling. However you name it.

We have seen different approaches of integrating these new productivity tools into our non-physical work, some offered as to-be-integrated solutions, forcing more or less customized integration projects into an increasingly standardized toolset (beginners phase, not so smart), modules with standard interfaces for easy plug-and-play (still complex due to data complexity despite easy-to-handle API) and existing built-it functions in current platforms.

The focus now has shifted increasingly to tools with a significant to huge output. The real deal-breakers may be the ?silent“ ones, adding a few point of productivity every time they are plugged into?Outlook, Teams, Google Apps or Salesforce.

Why do I think so?

Since the beginning of industrialization, we face a steady race between humans and complexity. Office work is a very good example: as soon as work started to be delegated at large scale, the planner needed help in tracking their tasks and responsibilities, they needed assistance. In the days when an office manager might needed a handful of people to type and process orders or reports, we invited electronic helpers into our office life - and sometimes called this function ?assistant“. In the meantime, we have radically reduced the ratio between the people who plan, execute and control work processes and assistants. And with the dawn of the new century, it has become increasingly unpopular for many office workers, even in the upper hierarchies, to have flesh-and-blood personal assistants, as tools for travel expense reports, email and other productivity tasks appear to outweigh the loss of traditional personal assistance.?

One of the reflexes of this development was a kind of steady drowning in open tasks, to the extent that a whole new industry with “good advice” has emerged, selling ?clean your inbox” advice and ?getting things done“ (I love it!) rules.

The misunderstanding in this phase, however, is the underestimation of continuously growing complexity. A team lead is now responsible for a global team - an experience that in the 80s only some industry bosses had. The number of tasks in our businesses explode as our businesses expand. VUCA has already kicked-in long ago and without AI we might have no chance to manage the rising complexity.

To briefly summarize: we have already reached the tipping point where, without the integration of AI into our work, we lose control over all our necessary tasks. Automatic and non-standard responses to mails after an initial "inbox triage", managing our calendars, planning, booking and easily managing our trips (or when the system decides to avoid and schedule a telco), managing our tasks and moving them dynamically in our schedules - there are a lot of things we won't be doing with just Human Resource in the near future. And many new tools for testing are already available.

Maybe this is one of the steps to address the C in VUCA, even it is only the C. We soon will have a lot of AI in our offices, and it will be as normal as texting and as boring as word-processors.

written by Thomas Siekmann , CIO at Exasol and Advisory Board Member of #CIONET in Germany

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