Hannu Rauma was experiencing discouragement and frustration due to the strain of overseeing 83 staff.
Mr. Rauma, who is based in Vancouver, Canada, said that he was feeling defeated and overburdened by all the things that were going wrong within the teams. He works as a senior manager for a company called Student Marketing Agency, which hires college students to help small businesses with their marketing. His enthusiasm would be tempered by the thought that “we’re going to screw up” when he was onboarding new clients.
However, Mr. Rauma claims that all changed in November of last year when the company started utilizing an autonomous AI manager created by the US-based business Inspira.
The agency’s remote workers with variable schedules receive assistance from the AI manager in organizing their timetables and prioritizing their tasks.
It keeps track of their timekeeping, reminds them of deadlines, gives them check-in messages on a regular basis, and logs the amount of time they spend on each client so that the latter can be appropriately billed. In addition, the AI offers advice on how to better phrase written materials, responds to inquiries about work, and automatically updates everyone’s work progress in a central gateway.
According to Mr. Rauma, his colleagues are now able to work more quickly and productively, and the change to an AI manager has also helped him feel less stressed. He is able to concentrate on all the good things and the company’s expansion. He claims that it has undoubtedly added years to his life.
Furthermore, Mr. Rauma says, his interactions with his staff have much improved. It used to feel a lot like a father-child dynamic. They are in a more equal position now. It was all about problem solving before. However, they can now converse in a more playful manner.
However, not all employees at Student Marketing Agency have yet to utilize the AI manager. In order to evaluate the performance of the AI manager with that of human managers, Inspira, along with researchers from Columbia University, Arizona State University, and the University of Wisconsin, conducted a study that included Mr. Rauma and 26 of his 83 employees.
Three groups of participants were formed: one with a human manager coaching, another with an AI manager coaching, and the final group with both a human and an AI manager coaching.
The AI manager was successful 44% of the time in encouraging staff members to schedule their workdays ahead of time and 42% of the time in getting them to clock in on time. The human manager, who received ratings of 45% and 44% in those two categories, was comparable to these numbers.
However, in a collaborative effort with a human manager, the AI manager was able to convince 72% of employees to pre-plan their workdays and 46% of them to arrive on time.
Notwithstanding the study’s statistically small sample size and focus on a particular industry and worker type, its findings suggest intriguing ramifications for businesses implementing artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Although companies such as UPS, Dell, Klarna, and others have declared large layoffs this year, Prof. Paul Thurman of Columbia University in New York contends that it would be a mistake to replace all management positions with AI.
According to the management professor, the most important layer in every organization is middle management. They are the layer that, if turned over, will take you on a crazy ride. Human managers should be focusing on these human-related tasks more than AI, such providing continuity and mentoring, as your employees are not receiving any of these.
Prof. Thurman goes on to say that managers can be freed from constant reminders and check-ins to concentrate on more creative ways of working thanks to AI. Managers have the ability to select project teams based on specific skill sets, supervise the brief, and delegate task management tasks like deadline management to their AI.
In a similar vein, AI can focus in on top performers who need more credit and pinpoint team members who are lagging behind and may need human supervision. He advises businesses, however, to avoid using AI managers as a spying mechanism.
It is not desirable to reach a stage where you observe that individuals are not only arriving late for work, but also taking excessive time during lunch and consuming insufficient amounts of salad. Prof. Thurman thinks you don’t want to go that far. The goal is to identify the most effective means of promoting right behaviors.
According to Tina Rahman, founder of HR Habitat, a London-based HR consultancy, AI managers can also assist those who have become “accidental managers”—those who thrive in their positions and wind up managing people as a result, despite management not being a natural aptitude for them. They conducted a study in which they examined the causes of employee turnover. Nearly all of the responders (99%) attributed it to poor management.
According to Ms. Rahman, a number of them expressed dissatisfaction with their management style, and the majority of them attributed it to their lack of clarity about their responsibilities and progress.
One would imagine that an AI manager would be designed to provide those precise instructions, as well as total openness on the criteria and results. Individuals who are aware of what is expected of them are likely to be more productive.
However, Ms. Rahman cautions that relying too much on AI management sends the message that businesses value productivity over people.
A company will find it quite difficult to announce to its staff that they are implementing a cutting-edge AI system that will manage them all while also saying, with the same expression, “We are concerned about your experiences at work,” she says.
That being said, James Bore, managing director of cybersecurity firm Bores, as well as a speaker and author, cautions that the main worry regarding AI managers may come from a cybersecurity standpoint rather than a people one.
According to Mr. Bore, if an AI manager has access to all of the company’s policies, practices, and intellectual property—which is all now contained in the software—it might be taken over by a cloning hacker and possibly kept ransom.
If businesses replace humans with AI and you’ve become dependent on it, as they will, you’re in a difficult situation since you have no recourse and no way to go back to using humans.
According to Mr. Bore, there might be an unexpected effect beyond businesses becoming more reliant on potentially unstable systems, rather than them becoming more productive through the widespread adoption of AI.
Yes, you will reduce costs the more you automate and the more you remove humans from your company. However, you will also increase the replaceability of your business.
