How AI Can Make Your Job Easier

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic that, if it’s not in your immediate wheelhouse, can seem irrelevant. And, more often than not, that “wheelhouse” is perceived to be the upper echelons of business and innovation—the C-suite leaders, the tech masterminds, the high-level IT and marketing experts operating behind the curtain. The reality? Leveraged well, AI and automation impact everyone. And if you’re an enterprise worker who brushes it off as a senior-level consideration? AI and automation, arguably, have the potential to empower you the most.

Automating and eliminating the mundanities

Although it’s exciting to lump AI with cutting-edge, borderline-futuristic technology and innovation, the reality is much simpler—and much more real-time relevant. The fact is, AI and automation have arrived in a big way, and the trickle down is already in motion. We’re already seeing major impact in some unexpected ways—specifically, in worker empowerment and advancement.

Some good examples?

Machine-learning contract review applications, like the one leveraged by Deloitte, scan thousands of complicated legal documents, pulling out and organising textual information so it can be better analyzed. At Deloitte’s scale, this type of work can be incredibly time-consuming and tedious. “AI,” Deloitte Managing Director David Schatsky explains, “now makes it possible to do that kind of work a lot faster and more comprehensively. It completely changes the way that kind of work is done.”

There’s also the notion of AI inserting itself into your day—in a good way—with platforms like Zoom.ai. Billed as your “automated assistant,” Zoom.ai automates a host of administrative tasks—everything from scheduling meetings to booking Ubers to transcribing and disseminating calls, briefs, and minutes to snagging those hard-to-get warm intros. Users claim the platform saves them 25 hours per month, while boosting productivity by 14 percent and generating about $16,000 in savings per $100,000 employee. By being in-step with users 24/7, Zoom.ai enables business leaders to cut through the clutter and get the intel and insights they need when they need it—and get an extra set of (virtual) hands on some of the most time-consuming and business-critical tasks that impact their day-to-days.

Here, we’re leveraging Adobe Scan, a mobile solution for digitising printed documents. With built-in optical character recognition (OCR), Adobe Scan makes virtually any document—forms, notes, presentations—searchable, shareable, and reusable. It’s a major enhancement to a system that, in one fell swoop, eliminated a lot of extra legwork and manpower.

But what’s freeing time from mundane tasks without adding some play? Celebrity chef Tyler Florence uses Adobe Scan to collect, edit, and share recipes, while at the same time preserving them for future generations. He calls it his “personal custom recipe builder and curation tool.” Extending the feast beyond the table, Chef Florence has asked his Instagram followers to vote on their favorite recipes and then put the winners together as a set of PDFs.

Benefits for everyone

The end result from these and countless other examples? Mundane tasks eliminated but still completed—and completed with increased accuracy. By their very nature, AI and automation eliminate the notion of human error, and keep projects on-task and on-point.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Already, workers are seeing the benefits or, at the very least, the potential of AI and automation. According to Adobe’s The Future of Work: More Than a Machine study, 84 percent of US office workers say technology frees them up from boring tasks. Two in three say they want to use AI at work so they can have a “personal assistant” to share everyday tasks with—it’s Siri for the enterprise set.
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_By embracing AI and automation, companies can drive more rewarding experiences for their employees, who can now spend more time on ideation and creation, embracing skill-based, experience-heavy tasks that lead to more success on all sides. It’s a positive, proactive cycle that has the potential to power countless companies in virtually every vertical, and drive powerful career paths for enterprise workers.