AI – Absolutely Incredible or Annoyingly Impersonal?

As a creative, I tend to work in pictures and analogies to explain things, so please go with me on this.
 
These days, you can’t go and order a sandwich without hearing or taking part in a conversation about AI. “Yes, it’s a massive worry!” … “AI? Oh, it’s going to take everyone’s jobs!” … “It’s only a matter of time before we’re all run by robots!” That kind of thing. You hear it everywhere. And don’t get me wrong, in the short space of time that it drifted into our lives, it’s grown faster than Wisteria up the wall of a lovely, country property. And like Wisteria, do we know which route it’s going to take and where it’s going to end up? Not really. But we can train it, and it can make things look lovely. Like said botanical, there are many different varieties of AI. Not every business will use the same one, but it’s safe to say that, if it isn’t already, it’ll touch your work, and life, in one way or another.
 
Our industry is based around people. About engaging with people in every aspect of their working lives and we believe that that’s not a responsibility to take lightly. As I write this, my wife is about to be made redundant from a job she’s had for the best part of 28 years, and she’ll now have to embark on that journey of finding a job. And I find myself back on the front line of witnessing the emotions of the whole process in which she’ll have to go through. It’s an incredibly personal journey and I’ve already been reminded of how important it is to deal with people in the correct way during that process.
 
Anyway, what’s all this got to do with AI? Well, in what we do on a daily basis, AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting, but what it can’t do is engage on a personal level. 
 
I tend to equate it to an experience in hospitality. (Like I said, I work in pictures and analogies. Stick with me!) You go out for a meal, for example. A perfectly decent restaurant. The food’s fine. In fact, there’s nothing particularly awful about the whole thing. The waiting staff do their job. You have your meal. Back home. Off to bed. End of story. Lovely. But it’s not something that you’ll necessarily remember in a couple of months’ time. The whole experience could be so much better, and it doesn’t need to take a lot to make it that way. It’s about that personal engagement. The human touch. The attention to detail that only a really astute maître d' or someone else in the restaurant would pick up on. Someone with that innate ability to notice the tiniest of things and to implement them. Positive actions, focusing on the detail, and emotional engagements can elevate the whole experience to a completely different level. We’ve all had those moments when you think to yourself; ‘That was a lovely touch’, or you catch yourself smiling as you realise that someone has done something very special that they didn’t need to do to enhance your experience. And they didn’t expect anyone to notice that it was them or reward them. They did it because they knew that it would create something truly memorable and make a huge difference.
 
And that’s where AI in our industry just doesn’t pass muster. AI is the waiter or waitress who’s ‘doing-this-as-a-job-until-something-else-comes-along’. It’s the maître d' who ‘isn’t-really-cut-out-for-this-and-can-do-better’ with their life. They’re simply doing a job - and not even badly - but it’s not the job of the person who ‘gets it’. They’re not creating those special experiences any time soon.
 
When it comes to EVPs and Employer Brands, anyone can stick a few words or phrases that come from the ‘voice of the people’ sessions into ChatGPT (or any other large language model) and proudly parade the results in front of existing and potential employees, but it just doesn’t really quite resonate. Not like it should. And the whole process is probably going to have to be done again in the not-too-distant future. It’s that restaurant that was perfectly decent, where the food was fine, and the ambience…etc, etc, but when you look back on it, it didn’t make you FEEL anything other than that it was a transactional experience. Book. Turn up. Eat. Pay. Go home. And you could argue that that’s all that’s needed. And it is sometimes. But not when you’re dealing with people. They need something to make them feel that they were catered for properly. Looked after and understood. Valued.
 
So, there you have it. In my opinion, that’s where AI currently sits in our industry. It’s a transactional dining experience with waiting staff that’ll do a half decent job because they don’t know anything different. They’ll finish their shift and go home. Here at DNA Towers, we’re far from shying away from AI. We may not be able to predict what’s going to happen on the AI timeline, but we certainly know how people tick and that’s where we know that investing in people is time well spent.
 
AI – Absolutely Incredible or Annoyingly Impersonal? I know what I think.