AI Adoption – Obstacles Ahead

McKinsey recently released a paper on AI adoption showing how AI already has a strong following amongst the younger elements of the workforce with McKinsey encouraging leaders to step up and make bold moves because their employees are backing them to do so. It all felt a little too high level and inconsistent from experience.

By contrast, I was talking to a specialist AI start-up who were running a POC with a potential client. Their model runs some quite advanced data extraction techniques over a heavily manual pre-contract workflow often written in unstructured documents or by hand or sometimes both. The management of the POC target are excited about the technology as it promises to speed up throughput and cut costs. Unfortunately, those that it is meant to help, have not engaged at all.

At first glance the McKinsey view and the issues faced by the Tech firm are in conflict, but I suspect they are both true. What I think McKinsey is observing is people using tools like Claude or Gemini etc to help with basic tasks. In that respect it could be akin to using a calculator, it’s an aid and saves you doing things the difficult way. On the surface you could say the same thing about the tech firm, surely, it’s just an aid? Not in this case, it’s a fairly small step from unstructured data capture to largely automated process. The ‘calculator’ isn’t taking your job, the specifically applied AI might be.

The AI firm is experiencing normal human emotion when threatened; in fact, it would be highly unusual to find a team of humans embracing technology that if successful would ensure if not all of their demise then at least some of them. Maybe there are tasks that are so dull where attrition levels are so high that people really will embrace the technology that will free them from the grind even if that is to redundancy. Or an industry that is growing so fast that operatives see the AI as truly augmenting and supporting them. But I doubt it.

History would tell us that the adoption of technology that replaces people is fraught with challenges. History will also show that innovation might create human redundancy in one area, but it gives rise to growth in other areas. People will resist but for those that embrace it, more interesting, more engaging, and better paid work is on the other side. Firms should just prepare for the change management program ahead.

For those that are displaced by AI take heart that, history, demographics, and a reasonably firm job market are in your favour.