To start us off, Daniel Finnigan, Senior User Researcher at Transform, says in his experience avoidance of AI can stem from several causes; one being that it’s too alien for organisations to understand - especially in the early stages of AI experimentation. Data protection and GDPR worries is another big problem area for companies where large language models, for example, can spit out your information elsewhere, leaving you liable for something you can’t control. The final reason is a question that grabbed a lot of headlines in the past year: will AI replace humans in the workplace? Based on our own experience, the current tools simply don’t have the reasoning skills to replace human minds.
Head of Analysis, Michael Baines, adds that organisations may shy away from AI initially because of how rapidly it gained traction. Although application of AI has been around since the fifties, the use has only been widely publicised within the last few years - largely down to the advancements in large language models and infrastructure that can handle the demand to run these sorts of models. It doesn’t help that rushed and poorly planned implementations have only fuelled these concerns around AI. Done properly it can revolutionise the customer experience and help tailor the most appropriate services to their needs. Done poorly it creates technical debt and can be damaging to your brand and potentially contravening data legislation laws.
The educational skill gap is another concern for many people, and it can feel overwhelming when new to this. “It’s about trying to get their head around what AI is, commercial use cases and the value it can generate for them,” comments Michael.
Though concerns are certainly valid to a point, the most realistic concern is how tricky AI can be. Daniel explains there’s a skillset to prompting AI that you need to learn sooner rather than later.
For one, not to get left behind. AI is going to be everywhere, so it's quite plausible that the technology is going to creep up on anyone who's avoiding it on a personal or business level. Those who chose to avoid AI in these initial stages will feel pushed into a corner where uninformed AI implementation could lead to all sorts of problems and risks.
Competitors choosing to get on board with AI will inevitably get ahead and the result will be more pressure for you to respond. Though it won’t affect every niche, there are plenty of sectors where ignoring AI is going to put you at a disadvantage sooner or later, and somebody in the return-on-investment chain is going to come knocking, wondering why you’re unproductive compared to your competitors.
Speaking in the research and design space, our Director of Service Design, Dave Jackson feels many of the services we use today can be completely reimagined with AI. Why do we need to navigate to a website and complete a series of pages to complete a task when AI offers a completely new way for humans to engage with services? Exploring and cracking that, as designers, is key.
It’s likely the first big shift in AI adoption will be AI acting as a co-pilot, supporting what we do in our day-to-day roles within the research and design space. AI has huge potential to aid our work as designers, researchers and writers, so we need to consider how we adapt and deliver better services for our clients and their customers.
Michael echoes the idea of AI products augmenting existing roles and responsibilities instead of replacing human function entirely. AI is something that can help you with efficiency and automation of repetitive tasks which then frees employees up to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Lucy Hutchinson, User Researcher, has done extensive testing within her team on how different tools can be used to make workstreams smoother and found that although it’s efficient, it's not effective without some kind of human input. This makes the word ‘augmenting’ key when referring to AI in the workflow.
In terms of research, Dave feels AI allows us to go deeper and wider on desk research than time and budget would normally allow. When it comes to interface and content design AI struggles, even when there are clear design systems and style guides available. This problem will be solved in time and the potential of AI using robust design systems to rapidly generate interactive prototypes is significant. Although human skillsets will be essential in bringing empathy and nuanced thinking, both critical to great interfaces and user experiences.
In terms of the skill gap, Lucy thinks it’s vital for employees to educate themselves, so the quality of work doesn’t suffer with AI implementation. Prompting has become a kind of art form; it’s constantly evolving and changing with each new version of all the different programs. For example, Midjourney - a tool for AI image generation - Version 4 worked best with limited word combinations while Version 6 requires you to be more descriptive. Knowing how to use the tools correctly and keeping your finger on the pulse is one of the biggest factors in producing quality work on these platforms.
If you’re interested in knowing how we can help you pave your way into a better customer experience and put the right foundations in place, drop us a note at transformation@TransformUK.com and we’ll put you in contact with one of our experts.
We’re also sponsoring the Customer Experience Conference 2024 in London on March 5th, where hundreds of CX trailblazers will gather to discuss challenges and opportunities in the market. Transform’s CEO, Emma Robertson, will be there answering questions on the “The Impact and Opportunities of AI” panel. If you’re planning on attending, we’d love to meet you there. In the meantime, read Emma’s interview ahead of the conference by clicking here.
