Duygu Soysanli
Today we are discussing mistakes to avoid with AI in the workplace. ChatGPT is still going strong. Since its May 24 update, Google’s Bard received an incredible set of new features such as audio or image prompts and bing stopped gaslighting people. The point here is we love AI productivity tools.
There is nothing wrong with using them. Think about it for a second. Automating mundane tasks, using technology that gradually keeps getting better… There is nothing more human than that. But these tools are by no means perfect.
And now that they’ve been a part of everyday office life for some time now, let’s talk about some of the common mistakes you need to avoid while using AI productivity tools.
5 Common Mistakes to Avoid With AI In The Workplace
1. Implementing AI just for the sake of it
And right off the bat, let’s start with one of the most dangerous mistakes when it comes to AI in the workplace, which is implementing them just for the sake of implementing them. You want the following big, shiny AI tool. The Internet is filled to the brim with people telling us if we don’t start using AI now, we’re going to be left behind. Those people should calm down.
You’re going to be okay. We see this happen all the time. People want what’s best for their team, so they start rolling out one cool AI tool after another. And do you know what happens next? Well, the same thing that happens to every team that’s drowning in software.
Either none of them get used, or people try to use all of them at once, and it’s not productive at all. Pick one if you need it.
2. Letting AI replace human interactions
Number two, don’t let it replace genuine human interactions. One of the scariest things we’ve seen about AI tools recently oddly enough came inside the 365 Copilot trailer where they were using it to generate emails.
Now, it seems handy at first glance, but think of what kind of a slippery slope that is. You generate an email through it, send it, and the other person generates a response to it and suddenly you’re not talking anymore. It’s one machine to the other. And is that the kind of workplace you want to be a part of? Don’t get me wrong, it seems like an incredibly useful tool that will save us all a lot of time.
But we both know how this works. Complacency sets in, and soon enough it is all we’ll be using. And that’s not okay. There are nuances to human communication that an AI chatbot just can’t get right.
Why? Because it doesn’t have your relationship with the person. Can you imagine if your boss gave you AI-generated feedback? You’d want to storm their office. That doesn’t mean you can’t use AI for feedback.
For example, Teamflect’s Feedback module has a summarize with AI button where if you have way more feedback than you can get to, you can click it and get a summary of all of them, the good and the bad. See, you’re not replacing the connection, you’re just making it easier.
3. Not fact-checking the information
Number three, and this is going to be a short one, take whatever information you get from AI tools with a grain of salt. Never forget to fact-check them. Don’t believe us? Just ask those lawyers what happened.
4. Letting AI do all the writing
Number four. Don’t let AI do all your writing for you. We’re not even talking about SEO, because, AI-generated SEO content, is an entirely separate can of worms. Writing well is a skill, and if you don’t use it, you will lose it.
But if we have to talk marketing, Google right now is being flooded with AI-generated SEO garbage. So human content has never been more valuable. And that is worth all the time and effort it takes.
5. Not properly setting up AI tools
And last but not least, number five. AI is not a quick, easy-fix button. It’s anything but that. As Doug Davidoff puts it in an article that I will link to in the description, using AI effectively requires a lot of setup, training, monitoring, and maintenance. And if you don’t do any of those steps, you’ll end up with faulty data sets and people who take the results from them.
At face value, AI productivity tools can be incredibly powerful. But as awesome as they are, they’re equally complicated and they can be equally problematic in certain situations. It takes a lot of care and effort to use them right.
But if you do invest the time in setting it up, training the AI and your staff, maintaining it, and monitoring it, you will reap those rewards.
Teamflect is an extremely useful Microsoft Teams integration that will allow you to streamline your HR processes. To check out our useful features, you should schedule a free demo with Teamflect by clicking the button below!
