The Enduring Role of Humans: Functional Areas Where Generative AI has Limited Impact

Generative AI is a powerful technology that can automate specific tasks and augment human capabilities. However, it will have a limited impact on various business functions. Humans will continue to play a critical role in areas that require creativity, empathy, and ethical judgments. For businesses to truly embrace the power of generative AI, true technology democratization is essential to drive affordability.

Is that the question you keep asking yourself? Especially as a CXO of an enterprise? Let’s demystify Gen AI so that we set the foundation.

First things first, Generative AI is a branch of AI. So, it's not new. Generative AI can create content in various forms – text, image, audio, video, and 3D models.

The advent of Chat GPT, which recently celebrated its first birthday, has popularized Generative AI in a year, and organizations have all the reasons to cheer as this can be a transformational technology that can shape future businesses/ business models. Over the last few years, though organizations have been contemplating on their AI journey, Gen AI is accelerating the adoption and revolutionizing the industries.

For a technology that came into our lives/businesses just a year ago, at an individual/consumer level, we have seen phenomenal progress in the way it is improving lives – productivity, efficiency, personalization, and many more impact areas.

At an enterprise level, Gen AI has a broader impact focused on knowledge-related work – decision-enabling, collaboration, and content creation. With a few prompts, a marketeer can build a campaign in a few minutes as opposed to a few days needed earlier. As Gen AI is based on Large Language Models (LLMs), it's essential to establish a data platform across the organization that can be used to train these models.

So, the first question to ask yourself is – Are you a data-driven organization? Are you Gen AI ready?

Before making investments, CXOs need to evaluate their current state of data and AI programs and plan the next steps cautiously. Starting small, through an MVP, would be the best way to start. But wait! Do you think Gen AI can potentially save efforts and money for you across all walks of business? Probably not. Gen AI would have limited impact on the work that involves either humanely intense work or decisions to be made, which calls for outcome.

According to the WEF report on the future of work, 42% of business tasks could be automated by 2027 (as against 36% currently). Gen AI could be a significant driver in automating individual tasks (not roles) to bring efficiency and improvements to business processes.

Gen AI is a technology that can augment human abilities. While there has been so much talk on where Gen AI can have a potential impact, let us look at why Gen AI might have minimal or no impact on some of the key functions:

Designing and constructing a strategic vision and roadmap is a creative ability that necessitates human judgment and experience. Strategy leaders are proficient at envisioning the future, accommodating disruption, and thinking innovatively. They use data as input to craft company direction, build organization strategy, create flexible roadmaps that can adapt to changing conditions, and balance short-term goals with long-term vision.

Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” As leaders in corporate strategy, we also need to introspect and create awareness that prompt engineering may not derive the culture or values of the company. It’s on us to identify and live them in our everyday lives.

In the unpredictable world of product management, human managers thrive. They are experts at making informed decisions even when they don't have all the information, and they see ambiguity as a chance to be innovative. Their judgment, critical thinking, and experience help them navigate the unknown.

More or less, every company is a technology company - if we can say so. People in technology function not only plan but are also passionate champions of the products/services offered, which requires excellent communication skills and convincing the stakeholders about the potential of the product/service. They can unite communities of like-minded teams to work towards a common goal and give them a purpose.

Adaptability and creativity are quintessentially human qualities. HR and Transformation functions thrive in the face of change. They pivot strategies, lead teams through transitions, and innovate with creativity that AI cannot replicate. They inspire, motivate, and build a collaborative culture to navigate organizational changes and customer expectations.

Empathy is a human skill that is essential in today's data-driven world. It allows marketing, product design, and user experience teams to connect with users deeper and understand their unspoken needs and desires. By engaging in meaningful conversations and observing user behavior, empathetic teams can drive innovative solutions that meet the real needs of users. In other words, we will need humans to do marketing for humans than machines.

1. Corporate Strategy
2. Change Management
3. Strategic Partnership/Alliances
4. Mergers & Acquisitions
5. Employee Motivation
6. People Engagement
7. Security and compliance management
8. Product Design Strategy
9. Brand Narrative
10. Public and agency relations

While generative AI has gained momentum and promises transformation of businesses and business models, it is probably in its hype cycle where Open source and Cloud were a decade ago. Developments on Generative AI platforms are fast-tracking in the areas of knowledge management. There is still much work to do in privacy, accuracy, bias, and regulation.

Undoubtedly, Generative AI allows the democratization of content at scale as an augmentator. However, currently, Generative AI-based platforms/solutions are expensive, and the costs are expected to decrease soon. Hence, for businesses of all sizes to truly embrace the power of Generative AI, true technology democratization is essential to drive affordability.

While Generative AI will be part of the future, not all roles will be impacted, especially in some of the functions we discussed, and its adoption would be as an augmentative technology with Human-in-the-loop.

The witty side of us wants to call out – regardless of how we discuss generative AI, it is ultimately humans who made decisions about changes in the organization at the OpenAI boardroom recently. We bet Generative AI could not have done that!

*This article is our individual perspectives based on experience and not a reflection of organization’s capabilities/perspectives.

**This article was recently published by AI Insider.

Keywords: AI, artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, GenAI, Technology, Data-driven organization, Human Resources, Strategy, Product Management, Opinion

Disclaimer: This article is an opinion from the partners of nasscom.