Should AI Aid Existing Processes or Organizations Need New Start?

Like any other technology, AI also possesses great benefits and threats as well. It can turn into a boon or bane. At its best, AI can enable serenity of instant optimal processes and at its worst, AI algorithms can go rogue risking mankind. But to reach on the extremes, the technology is yet not in its best or worst maturity. According to research, most organizations are still in the infancy stage of AI implementation and with this, it is hard to reach any of the above outcomes.

The reality of the current status of AI is that it is agnostic and can aid both good and bad processes. AI can give strength to clunky or poorly conceived processes but at what cost?

For example – AI advancements are making progress in different industries. It helps organizations to recognize images, automate the interpretation, and restructure the information. Although the improved imaging has made things more efficient yet it has been considered as a pyrrhic victory which has been won at a great loss of expended resources. But the 'good enough' features of AI often covers the fact of it being not an ideal system. Improved image processing enables organizations to cut costs and automate much of the processing, but AI may also hide the symptoms of bad processes. Artificial Intelligence provides a bandage, not a cure.

If AI were to fail completely at any task, the system would be untenable, the costs would rise and people would notice its negatives. This would subsequently make changes inevitable.

Such problems lie with the companies having the manual legacy and have intended to make processes easy using AI. They desire to reduce the annoying work than to continue doing it. Those who got success will continue to improve underlying processes. But industries like health care, with legacy systems and embedded processes incorporating many people and many organizations, will find it difficult.

Only the freshly started companies or startups without any legacy processes can fully leverage AI. They need not make significant investments of time and resources to apply AI to old and dull processes that probably should not exist in the first place. As the old organization is struggling to bandage their processes through AI, the new entrants of the AI market will make mature use of tools and technology to outperform them.

So if there is any process in an organization that AI can improve, leaders first need to ask that – is there any need for that process anymore? To bandage the patient-processes it better to rely on new processes.