You know who really hates AI? The middle management mafia. When you teach a member of your corporate deep state to do a job in 30 minutes that used to take three hours, you know what they want to do at minute 31? Grab a coffee. When you ask them what they did with the 2.5 hours of time that AI created for the company, the stock answer will be something like, “Well… you know that generative AI hallucinates. We were checking the output for accuracy.” So much for the ROI on your $30-per-seat investment in Copilot. But there is hope for the “could have been an email” crowd. Let’s explore.
First, let’s agree that productivity is the key driver of economic success. In simplistic terms, if every worker was 25% more productive, your (fill in your preferred metric here) would increase by 25%. There are plenty of reasons why, mathematically speaking, this would not be a linear relationship, but let’s agree that there would be a measurable increase in productivity.
Next, let’s agree that no one wants to do more work for the same compensation. Increased productivity is the goal of routine innovation, but non-stakeholders do not go to bed each night dreaming of ways to increase stakeholder value past their own ability to benefit from the value they create.
“The” Question
Which brings us to the critical question: How do we incentivize and compensate an AI-enabled workforce?
The Fear Is Real
When discussing AI, the fear of job loss is inevitable. This should surprise no one. Technology has already taken every manual and cognitive repetitive job that could be automated. Now, AI is threatening to automate cognitive non-repetitive work (aka white collar work). It scares the hell out of people – the fear is real.
Education is the Fix
Education tends to allay the fear of losing one’s job to AI. We’ve been teaching prompt crafting and prompt engineering for our corporate clients for more than a year and we’ve learned something that may seem counterintuitive – once a white collar worker understands how much subject matter expertise is required to get the most out of their human/ai coworker relationship, they lose their fear of losing their job.
Try a simple experiment with tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Bard, or Claude. Pose a question in your area of expertise and observe the generic response. Then, rephrase it into more nuanced, expert-driven queries. You’ll notice a marked difference in the results. Knowledge, as always, amplifies outcomes.
Workflow & Process
We’ve also learned that simply adding automation to existing workflows and processes is not ideal. You must ensure your workflow and process innovation is in sync with the exponential pace of technological innovation. This is accomplished by empowering (and incentivizing) your workforce to innovate time-tested workflows and processes that “aren’t broken.”
The best way to do this is by encouraging a culture of innovation. Productivity is not going to incrementally increase, AI is a force multiplier. Senior leaders must work with their business units to create an incentive structure that rewards teams that increase productivity by a measurable amount (you can set these parameters). In some companies, teams are rewarded with more time off, in others additional compensation has been preferred. This is where sensitive and human-focused leadership can shine.
Informed Leadership
An educated leadership team is an effective leadership team. If your senior leaders are not well-versed in daily use of AI, forming a robust corporate AI strategy will be challenging. I’ve facilitated dozens of AI Leadership Level-set Workshops for our Fortune 500 clients and I can say from experience that once a leadership team is fully aligned on the opportunities and challenges posed by AI, progress is dramatically accelerated.
Who Owns AI?
The battle for AI ownership within companies is intense. IT wants it, the Data Office wants it, Marketing wants it, HR would like it (after all, synthetic employees should fall under their domain), Category Leads want it. The fight for who owns AI is fierce because the stakes could not be higher.
Some firms appoint an AI Czar to oversee AI projects, while others let departments compete for AI supremacy, or simply wait for AI to integrate naturally into their systems.
The problem with all these approaches is that AI is not one thing. Generative AI, in the form of copilots or assistants are now table stakes. Anyone wanting an AI assistant can have one for about $30/month. There is no competitive advantage to be had, it’s just a new set of features everyone will have to learn.
On the other hand, new products, new ways to “talk” to your dashboards, new production methodologies, new ways to interact with your data, new ways to unlock value in your proprietary data… this is where competitive advantage will emerge.
To get there, you must build an AI-ready culture. We’re here to help.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
