“The future of work depends on a successful collaboration between humans and machines. By harmonizing the team’s talents with AI tools, productivity will prosper and make collaboration easier, faster and more effective”, says David Karandish, CEO of Capacity in an exclusive interview with EnterpriseTalk.
ET Bureau: What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the AI tech space? What is its role and value in the post-pandemic world?
David Karandish: The pandemic augmented the adoption of AI tech as many companies realized the benefit of productivity tools, automated task management, customer service and so much more. Businesses everywhere are trying new software and cloud-based storage systems to allow their teams to do their best work. Post-pandemic, we expect organizations to continue to purchase and implement tech at rapid rates. But, rather than creating a tech stack by stitching together a bunch of siloed point solutions, more business leaders will opt for an AI-driven platform approach. Companies are tired of trying to get disparate tools to work together and being forced to buy solutions with overlapping offerings. Support automation platforms will be crucial for organizations to increase revenue with lower costs and better outcomes.
The biggest focus for business leaders navigating the post-pandemic workplace is for their teams to have the tools and technologies they need to do their best work. As a result, one of the main priorities for business leaders is team member productivity. That’s why, we’ll continue to see organizations adopting AI technology to take on manual and repetitive tasks following the pandemic, so their team can focus on activities that require higher-level thinking. AI can automate support for both customers and team members, leading to higher customer and employee satisfaction, and less customer attrition and employee turnover.
Also Read: Hybrid Cloud Environment- Accelerating the Pace of Digital Transformation
ET Bureau: How is AI, data and messaging platforms changing the future of work, how is it helping employees with productivity?
David Karandish: AI messaging platforms and chatbots are two of the most effective ways for an organization to provide its customers with 24/7 support. One of the best parts of these tools is that businesses can provide always-on support in a way that doesn’t replace the feeling of a person-to-person interaction that customers get when picking up the phone and talking to a representative. Around-the-clock support with conversational AI is not as common as you’d believe but AI-powered messaging tools are quickly becoming a staple of web experiences, replacing the traditional, rule-based chatbots of the past. These chatbots offer smarter interactions in a human-like way by bridging the gap between human and computer language. They can learn from daily interactions and become more “human” while still delivering the immediate responses customers want.
As for the future of work, it’s a seamless transition. The future of work depends on a successful collaboration between humans and machines. By harmonizing the team’s talents with AI tools, productivity will prosper and make collaboration easier, faster and more effective. Instead of spending their time answering monotonous questions or repetitive tasks a machine could easily handle, teams have more time to focus on the tasks that align with company goals and drive revenue.
ET Bureau: Does workflow automation make remote work more efficient?
David Karandish: Before the pandemic, there was a notion that remote work wasn’t as effective compared to working in a physical office, which is why a lot of business leaders were dragging their feet on offering a remote work option. However, with the COVID-19 outbreak, businesses had to take the plunge since team member health depended on it.
It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get yourself back on track after being interrupted according to an University of California Irvine study. From wrangling kids and pets to doing laundry and tidying up, these new distractions at remote environments are often unavoidable. Yet, for those companies with automated processes already in place, the transition to remote work was significantly smoother than those still using traditional processes. When equipped with workflow automation, remote team members are just as efficient–if not more than in the physical office.
ET Bureau: What are the key trends driving the growth in AI/ Big Data analytics/Machine Learning?
David Karandish: There has been a lot of talk about how technology has changed during the pandemic, but AI has been a secret weapon on the low-code/no-code solution rise long before the widespread lockdowns and work-from-home mandates. According to Gartner, 65% of application development will be low code by 2024. As technology becomes more accessible, low-code/no-code tools will only continue to rise in popularity. Through low-code/no code solutions, businesses can move forward in their digital transformation without a technical resource at every step.
As more companies aim to be as efficient as possible, they are willing to invest heavily in new technology to reach their desired results. For example, RPA, AI, ML and NLP are a few that will quickly become prerequisites for successful businesses in the coming years.
Businesses in all industries need to determine what tasks can be automated and what tasks need a human touch. Finding the right balance between these two can lead to incredible results. Successful businesses will engage a support automation partner to serve as an extension of their team to help them implement AI-powered solutions.
Also Read: Half of the U.S. Healthcare Providers to Invest in RPA in Next 3 Years
ET Bureau: What unique opportunities does AI provide enterprise leaders?
David Karandish: Just like smaller businesses, the adoption of AI-powered technology provides enterprise leaders the opportunity to run more efficient organizations. AI can easily handle repetitive tasks and processes and kick off workflows, so team members can focus their time and energy on human-centric tasks that impact the bottom line rather than the tedious time-sucking tasks currently on their plate. Working more efficiently improves team member productivity, engagement and satisfaction. As business leaders strive to improve productivity, AI will be a crucial component to operations.
However, let me be clear. Enterprise AI is not just a buzzword for company press releases and innovation departments, it’s slated to become a crucial resource for the future progress of every department of every industry, and for a good reason. The effect of the emerging automation environment, powered by artificial intelligence, is increasingly recognized by organizations. Consequently, it is essential to comprehend what types of implications will result from further development in, and implementation of AI. With the potential AI holds, enterprises are making implementation a main priority.
David Karandish is Founder & CEO of Capacity – an enterprise artificial intelligence SaaS company. Capacity’s secure, AI-native support automation platform helps teams do their best work. Prior to starting Capacity, David was the CEO of Answers Corp. He and his business partner Chris Sims started the parent company of Answers in 2006 and sold it to a private equity firm in 2014 for north of US$900 million.
Prangya Pandab is an Associate Editor with OnDot Media. She is a seasoned journalist with almost seven years of experience in the business news sector. Before joining ODM, she was a journalist with CNBC-TV18 for four years. She also had a brief stint with an infrastructure finance company working for their communications and branding vertical.
