Illustration by Vito Ansaldi
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When done right, AI can not only improve short-term productivity of organizations but can also increase their long-term performance by expanding the space of opportunities the organization considers by supporting learning, increasing intellectual diversity, and enhancing organizational culture. That is, it can increase the organization’s collective intelligence. Companies should focus on three elements of collective intelligence: collective memory, collective attention, and collective reasoning. When done right, managers embrace a way of deploying AI so that skills are enhanced, curiosity is nurtured, and communication and coordination are improved.
In the management world right now, it is common to think about AI in terms of automation vs. augmentation. Whereas automation implies machines taking over tasks previously performed by humans, augmentation refers to the cooperation between humans and machines in executing tasks. According to the conventional wisdom, augmentation leads to higher performance than automation because it alleviates downsides such as short-term thinking, loss of flexibility due to lock-in, and loss of human intuition and skill. That is, downsides that counter long-term success.
