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Welcome everyone to the Humans in AI in the workplace podcast. Over the last few years, it's become clear that artificial intelligence AI is one of the most impactful and disruptive transformations in the workplace. As a leader, you may be wondering how to get started and how to do it in an intelligent way. Or you may be stuck. Or how to overcome some of the people issues and human bottlenecks your AI has crashed into.
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We are here with Dr Debra Panipucci and Lesia Hart at AI Adaptive to wrap up season one and to talk about some of the things that happened in the world of AI and automation in 2024, just in case you missed it.
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As we wrap up, season one of the humans and AI in the workplace podcast, we wanted to say a huge thank you to all our listeners.
We started the podcast in May this year, 2024, and it's been a great experience and we've loved all the feedback and comments from listeners. We've especially appreciated hearing what's helped you navigate the impacts of AI more effectively in your workplace, and in some cases, at home, as well. An extra special thank you to all of our incredible guests for their willingness to say yes sometimes to, a complete random stranger.
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Our guests are absolutely experts in their fields and their generosity of sharing their knowledge and ideas in service, of helping our listeners is something we certainly don't take for granted. We also asked every guest there, wow., for humans and AI in the workplace and WOW stands for the wins, the opportunities and the watch outs. And we got some really cracking answers to that request.
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And so I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of those podcast episodes. But before we get into wrapping up the season, we thought we'd just touch on some of the things that happened this year and some of the changes in AI in the workplace that happened this year. And so why don’t you kick us off,
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Debra, with what your what your thoughts are and what you noticed this year. Yeah. So there's a few things that happened this year that you may have missed in the world of AI and automation, and they're really important for how things might play out next year in your workplaces. So for one in particular, it was that the large language models got a lot smarter this year.
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We've had two years with these large language models, and now they're starting to get a lot smarter, which has given rise to ‘agentic AI’ So, for instance, what we mean by agenetic AI is that these large language models and AI algorithms will be able to perform more complex tasks that can essentially mimic a series of work activities that your employees do.
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For instance, in October, an AI agent was able to operate a computer from a single typed prompt. So if you think about that, they were able to start. The AI agent could start up, the computer could launch, the computer could then start opening up applications and do a whole range of things that normally your AI algorithm couldn't do because it was very single task focused.
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Now they're able to do a lot more. So 2025, we expect, will be a lot more about AI agents and the rise of digital workers in your workplace. The other thing that comes with AI agents and agentic AI is that
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in September, OpenAI released a new large language model, and it could help an untrained individual navigate a public database of genetic information about viruses more quickly. So normally, that would take a very long time for an employee to be trained up, to be able to do that type of task. Now, an AI agent could support that employee who has no training to do it really quickly.
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So that's one thing that happened this year. The next thing we saw was that the conversation and the narrative is started to shift from a fear of, “oh, AI is going to take my job” to more of a sense of “AI is actually going to improve my job so that I can have a better job”. And one of the reasons is that as people start talking to their friends and networks, they're going to find out.
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They're going to start hearing stories of how they're using AI, and they're going to be like, oh, I could do that, too. And how AI has improved their role. And they're going to be like, yeah, “AI could improve my role too. Why don't I try that”. And so all of a sudden you're going to have a lot of employees and workers start to go, oh, you know, such and such in a different organisation is using AI to perform this part of their job.
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I'd like to do that too. And so for those jobs that start to become largely automated, in that sense, the roles will now turn into kind of like a master agent role, where they are overseeing the agentic AI that works for them. And so it's completely transforming these roles and elevating them to a higher level. And we expect to see a lot more of that in 2025 as the as the agentic AI starts to come out.
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Another thing that we're we've seen this year is a rise in kind of like prompt literacy, right? So people have been playing with GenAI and playing with different prompts and seeing what works and what doesn't work. Now we're going to start seeing your prompt skills become that differentiator in performance. So your high performing employees are going to be those that can do really good prompts and they can get things done fast.
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They can draw out really good answers from these gen AI tools and the people who
struggle because they're not very good at prompting. They're going to be the ones that spend a lot of time trying to work through the stuff that comes out of, you large language models.
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that isn't very good. It's going to slow them down and it's going to it's going to challenge that quality of their work. So prompt engineering and being able to do really good prompts into these models is going to become a performance differentiator in your workplace. So your workplace is going to have to navigate that and think about that when doing, performance reviews and goal setting and trying to help employees to to develop these types of skills.
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It's not just about being able to prompt really well. They have to be able to have really good human to human conversations and that emotional literacy, because you can be wicked at prompting, but not be able to have the conversations that matter with your peers and across the organization, which will hold you back.
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So it's not just about that part of being a high performer is also about that human side of being able to have those core leadership skills and those emotional, intelligent conversations. Yeah. And there's this huge implication for culture in the workplace and being able to break down those silos and have the crucial conversation where, ideas are put on the table and they're challenged and they, they approach with curiosity to improve them and get better.
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And, all of that human to human piece that, how your leaders work together and, and navigate the business and making it really easy to navigate the business is going to become much more important. Definitely. And that's that's a lot of the work we do outside of our podcast. So definitely prompt skills are important. The other thing that we saw, a real rise of in 2024 is that service companies, are using AI to write their reports.
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So if you get advice from a law firm or a consulting agency, there's a large chance that your report
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is generated by AI.
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So you need to be aware of that because you may see the same kind of stuff coming back from the service agents that agencies that you're using.
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And it's because they want to improve their efficiency and streamline, too. But it's just the way the industry is changing right now as these new tools are starting to be used. And it also means that there's become over 2024, there's become more acceptance of the use of AI and the the realization that you really can't put your head in the sand, in the sand and avoid it, because people are going to find a way to use it.
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Right? So we saw Sydney University come out to say they're allowing their students to use AI, and they're actually, helping students to think about how they use that AI generative AI tools in their exam. And they're conscious of that and they're working through that. We're seeing,
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in the recruitment process they're actually accepting that potential candidates are going to use generative AI to come up with their answers. So they're actually asking, what's the prompt you would use to answer this question to see if they have those prompt skills and to see if they really understand the content, to be able to prompt GenAI to give them an answer so that we're seeing a lot more of that acceptance. We're even seeing the Australian and Victorian government install ground cameras with video monitoring and smoke detecting AI software to look for better fire protection.
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But we are still seeing some backlash and resistance, particularly in the in the sense of facial recognition. So there are companies that pop up in the media for, using facial recognition and that's still not received well.
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But overall, we're seeing a lot more acceptance of companies using AI and embracing it into their, into the way that they do their work. We are seeing we did see in 2024 another shift in regulations in relation to this
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and the Australian government hasm they released the voluntary AI safety standards and various proposals.
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We also saw that Apple had to modify its roll out of its products to the EU, because
the regulations restricted the use of Apple intelligence installed in their devices. So there's all kinds of regulations that came out this year. And we expect to see a lot more next year. And Australia's just made changes to its Privacy Act as well.
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Yes, 2024 was a big year for AI and automation, and we can see that it's going to start to shift the landscape in organizations in 2025.
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as a HR or a business leader, you really need to start preparing for agentic AI. And it's coming in. It's going to redesign some of the work that roles do and some roles that may need to be elevated to like a master agent type of role.
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We will see a shift in that performance differential based on the the skills around AI and prompts. We will see employees starting to talk to each other about how they're using AI and what's working, and then wanting to use it in their role. And so you will see a lot more of that messy tech stack in relation to there's going to be so many different tools and uses that pop up in your organization, which is going to be hard to monitor, which also means that you may hear more stories, which we've been hearing, of employees being fired for putting confidential information into these public large language models, which also means that you see
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more of that shadow tools and shadow AI, where, employees start to use their personal devices to do these things. So that its not on the company devices, and it cannot be monitored.
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And so with that, there's going to be a shift to that AI driven workforce optimization, looking at what are the tools and how are they streamlined and simplified to make it easy for people to do the right thing and to use the right tool and in the most effective way, because they've got the skills, we'll see a rise in building AI literacy and fluency
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in organizations because that's important and that's people's ticket to participate. So that's going to increase. There's been some great examples here in Australia this year of of companies building that and having AI, immersion centers and things like that. Which is great for not only their people but their customers as well. And so coming back to the future next year around, the workforce optimization, it's really on leaders to have that vision of what they imagine their workplace to look like for the next five years.
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And that's one of the things that we help organizations do. And we'll also do some podcast episodes on that next season in 2025, because it is a really key component. Now we're at a pivotal point where there are many organizations who are dipping their toe in, and they're changing their strategy, including AI, into the way that they operate moving forward in a very deliberate way versus a more reactive way, which is probably what's happened more, in the past.
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And with that, there needs to be this focus on what are the skills and the culture and the human architecture that we need as an organization. Moving forward to take us through the next five years. So we work with organizations to help them reimagine that and to be thoughtful about their things and plan for the things that could trip them up.
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And based on, you know, what we know and also what's happening in their industry and what they know about their organization in that context and then what's that roadmap out for them, and what are their first things that they need to do in terms of the jobs to be done, and how is that prioritized? So we really are excited about doing more of that next year.
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Important part to help people have a plan, and leaders have a plan for how they're navigating and making sure that their company, as well as their individuals, are a relevant into the future. Because if you're not doing this work, there is that risk of of becoming irrelevant. So we had a big year kicking off our podcast this year, and we tried to follow what we were seeing in the world of AI and automation.
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And so we kicked it off with our first episode, which is around addressing the fear of AI, which it was big at the beginning of the year. A lot of the narrative in the media was all about, hey, the AI is going to steal my job. It's definitely shifted over the year, so we're happy with that. And, and then that led us into the conversation with Kylie Walker around responsible AI and AI literacy, which was, you know, one of my favorite episodes.
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And I know it was for you, too Leis. Yeah, Kylie was super generous, and being our first guest, we we had to learn how to interview. And so that was that was a really good experience. And and one of the key quotes from Kylie's episode was leaders who understand AI, can lead the charge in creating smarter, more innovative workplaces.
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And that still rings true now and will definitely be into next year. Then we moved into episode three, which is around preventing human bottlenecks, and we really focus there on a lot of the work that we do with organizations to help them understand where are the the human points within their organization that they need to look at so that this big rush of AI coming into their organization doesn't hit that human bottleneck, whether it's because their information is siloed or they've got the behaviors of protectionism or leaders just don't understand and aren't really thinking more broadly about the impact and the way to collaborate across the organization.
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So that was one of our most popular episodes. And then we had episode four and five with Patrick Beraud, who was the venture lead at Tonomus Studios, and he was really eye opening for us because not only did he paint a picture of what was coming because they're at the forefront of investing in ventures that are really early stage, cutting edge technology.
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So we got an insight into that. And also coming back to the biggest impact in and issue in organization is, is culture and making sure you've got those foundations right. And the fundamentals as as Patrick called it out, he also gave us a bit of an insight into the difference between, AI adoption in the Middle East and what we could learn and take forward in the Australian context as well.
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So that was a great a couple of episodes with Patrick. So then we had episode six, respectful Human and AI transitions, where we had a lot of organizations talking to us about the re-orgs that they were doing throughout 2024, and it became really clear that it's really important to do these reorganisations and restructures really respectfully, particularly as you bring AI into the workplace.
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And there's that environment of fear and that links to episode seven about copilot and the Gen AI watchouts, that we did with Matt Shadwick. Because in his, with his insights and experience about how he rolled out copilot in an organization, we learned a bit about what are some of the things you need to watch out for and prepare for.
Episode eight, we focused on managing expectations of AI.
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There was a lot of talk at that point about disappointment in what AI was delivering in terms of productivity and streamlining, and also just an assumption that we'd bring it in and everyone would understand and be on board without addressing any of the cultural challenges that we already had and thinking about what we need in the future. So episode eight covered off how to really start to manage expectations of AI, and that took us then to episode nine where we spoke with Cheryl Vize.
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She's a partner of Redmarble AI. That episode really focused on leaders thinking about this change and why it's different to previous changes, which we've talked about a lot in all of our episodes. Things like data quality, ethics, governance, and really a voice for advocating for that human centered approach to bringing AI into the organization. Episode ten. We focused on priming your organization for AI because AI is essentially a tool to enhance the decision making and performance of your organization, but your organization really needs to be primed and ready for it.
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And so we thought it really important to do an episode just on priming to help people really understand what needs to happen so that you can get the benefits out of it, because then we led into episode 11, which we called AI Productivity promises, and we had Stephen King, Productivity Commissioner, join us, to talk about productivity because productivity is one of the main benefits that people want to see coming out from their use of AI.
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And yet we're still not seeing that benefit come to life yet, and maybe we will in 2025. But I think there's still some work to do to get the organization primed and ready for it before that will actually happen. That we let into episode 12 talking about critical thinking skills. It's such a throwaway term right now. You know, we just need to have critical thinking skills.
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So we got really practical in this episode of talking about, well, what is it in the context of AI in the workplace, and gave some core elements of critical thinking skills, which are essential not only in work as AI takes over more routine tasks. So think about what what the outputs are that you're getting from that and to think critically.
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Also helpful to build that within your own skills and your team skills and making that the the new normal in terms of capability and also helpful at home with kids and teenagers. And then episode 13, our last episode this year with a guest was with Anna Jaffe, director of Regulatory affairs and ethics at Atlassian, and we spoke to Anna about Atlassian’s responsible technology principles.
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And not only have they built and tested and they use it themselves in their organization, but they've created these amazing resources and made it free for anyone and everyone all over the world around how to think about what you're doing in a more responsible way. Guided templates as well as not just the core principles, but how do you actually bring it to life in a really practical way with the templates.
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That was a really interesting conversation for us, and it's a nice little intro into what could be changing the Australian landscape next year around regulation as well as we learned from the EU AI act that came into force in August this year, and what Australia looks to do next year.
We loved producing the podcast this year and we're really excited about continuing this next year and getting deeper into the future workplace.
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And, we we thank everyone for joining us and being a part of this. And I want to thank Leisa for all her hard work in pulling all these episodes together and finding guests,
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It was it was a great team effort Debra. And I always love the different styles that we bring in, the different perspectives and thinking that we bring to these also like to thank our clients who have allowed us to share some of their examples without always using names, because we really respect that privacy and that anonymity is really important they will be listening to some of these episodes and hearing their experience and their stories weaved into
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what we hope are greater learnings for other leaders out there who are navigating these changes. So just a huge thank you for listening. We're excited about our plans for next year's season two,
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Thank you. We hope you have a great end of year, whatever that looks like for you and your family.
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Humans in AI in the workplace is brought to you by AI adaptive. Thank you so much for listening today, you can help us continue to supercharge workplaces with AI by subscribing and sharing this podcast, and joining us on LinkedIn.
