Humans Are Underrated: How Collaborating with AI Will Minimize Workforce Disruption

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to transform business processes and productivity across industries and the economy as a whole. But unless businesses rethink how their people can work in partnership with intelligent machines, there's a risk that this promise will quickly pass them by. According to Jim Wilson, Managing Director of Information Technology and Business Research at Accenture Research, the most lasting, impactful performance boost happens when people and AI-powered machines work together to create "collaborative intelligence." Wilson, who conducted research with more than 1,000 global companies to co-author Human Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI with colleague Paul Daugherty, found that if AI is deployed primarily to displace human workers, short-term productivity gains are about as good as it gets. As Elon Musk said, 'Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. By contrast, Wilson's research found that enterprises that reimagine work around human and AI collaboration outperform those that focus solely on automation by more than three times -- and often, by more than six times -- in areas like speed, scalability, flexibility, and decision-making within processes.