AI overhype is real.
Business leaders have salivated over the possible transformations the technology can bring to their companies, and poured more than $1 trillion into generative AI investments. But one nagging challenge has emerged: leaders are failing to fully think through how to change their workforce amid this transformation, including how job tasks will get done, and the skills required of workers who complete them.
It’s a problem that’s preventing many organizations from seeing real value from AI investments, recent research from Accenture states. Only 36% of 3,450 C-suite leaders surveyed by the consulting giant have scaled generative AI solutions within their organization, and only 13% have gotten real value from those solutions, per a report released last month.
Karalee Close, global lead for the talent and organization practice at Accenture, told HR Brew that the difficulty for most organizations is being able to make whatever big ideas arise actually work as a practical matter.
“Layering on a piece of GenAI technology on someone’s existing work does not change the world, doesn’t really create a whole lot of value,” she said. “It's interesting, and you could do some things faster, but it doesn't change the work.”
The companies that are able to change the ways of working to adapt to AI are seeing the most benefit: Businesses that have seen organizational value from AI, for instance, are 4.5 times more likely to have invested in structured AI agent systems. And organizations that have advanced change capabilities are at least twice as likely to drive successful transformation efforts.
Quick-to-read HR news & insights
From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.
“Those that do scale, get real value, they’re the ones that actually adapt their workforce and invest in the technology in a good way, and yet very few are still doing that,” Close said. In fact, just 35% of executives say they have a roadmap for how generative AI will impact their workforce, the report states. And three times more generative AI budgets are spent on technology than on people.
For HR pros, they’ll need to focus on redesigning workforce strategy, career paths, and what Close calls the “talent flywheel,” or leveraging the skills, learning, and experiences to create the talent that their organization needs to adapt to AI.
Walk the walk. In addition to helping organizations radically change their workflows, HR departments have to invest in restructuring their own functions, Close added. And there are a lot of parts of the HR process that are ripe for reinvention with AI, from more prominent use cases like on recruitment and reskilling or developing existing talent, but also with total rewards and the retirement process.
If HR functions fail to do that for themselves, they could put the organization’s success with AI adoption at risk altogether.
“If you can’t demonstrate that you can do this in your own function, nobody’s going to listen to you on any of the other bits,” Close said. “And if the business gets ahead of you, they are going to be the ones defining some of the jobs of the future, because they’re going to be ahead, you’re going to be playing catch up.”