Is AI’s impact on the remote workforce good or bad?
How we work is constantly evolving, with the most significant change being the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into everyday office technology. A whopping 40% of the global employment workforce is exposed to AI in their day to day. Remote and distributed teams are at the forefront of this change. While all these advancements are exciting and provide bouts of productivity, what is the deeper effect AI is having on this workforce?
The good:
- Enhancing the workforce
- AI tools can streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks and provide real-time insights. All this can easily lead to increased efficiency for remote teams
- Enhancing communication and collaboration
- AI-powered communication tools can elevate collaboration efforts, like real-time language translation, smart scheduling tools can help remote team members communicate more efficiently
- Personalizing the experience
- For example, AI-powered email clients can prioritize important messages and automatically list out important action items.
The bad:
- Data privacy and security
- Chatbots or automated processes can potentially share information through vulnerable channels or accidentally access restricted data
- Adoption and training
- While beneficial, some AI workflows can be perceived as disruptive to remote teams accustomed to a more traditional workflow.
- Ethical issues
- Businesses must consider topics like the security implications of allowing AI to own processes and the possibility of displacing workers.