How AI Improves Collaboration in the Era of Constant Change

Mantra for Successful Digital Transformation

“We need to fail fast, innovate faster and be agile!” Over the last decade, this has been the guiding mantra for organizations undergoing digital transformation. I’ve witnessed plenty of shifts in processes and methodologies in the name of getting ideas to market faster — but at the end of the day, they often failed to live up to executive expectations. Yes, there were improvements, but also an increasing number of challenges for teams to overcome and which leadership often overlooked. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities are emerging to help teams address the challenges of collaborating in the era of constant change.

Collaborating in a World of Constant Change

Collaborating in a world of constant change makes it increasingly difficult for people to form the bonds and build the trust that research shows leads to improved outcomes. With agile practices and the philosophy of failing fast, ad-hoc teams are continuously forming and reforming. In addition, with workplace turnover at an all-time high, employee attrition and new hires can cause collaboration efforts to slow.

While new methodologies do emphasize the importance of teamwork and connection, these challenges still exist and they’re costly. Subpar collaboration is estimated to cost $11,000 per employee, per year.

So, the question that faces many organizations today is how do we use these methodologies to get to market faster while improving collaboration? And how can we create a more personal collaboration experience that helps build trust when the workforce is distributed and constantly changing?

Humans and AI Join Forces for the Ultimate Team Collaboration

What’s needed is a way for people to quickly come up to speed on who they are working with and understand the roles and responsibilities of each team member before the collaboration process even begins. Today, over 80% of people spend up to 5 hours a week researching the people they’re meeting with – obviously there’s a need to get to know the people we work with and connect on a deeper level and collaboration solutions powered with AI may provide the answer.

The Role of Collaboration in Digital Transformation

Cognitive collaboration, which is the application of AI and Machine learning to add contextual intelligence to the collaboration experience, is enabling these solutions to take an active role in helping people quickly connect and form the bonds that lead to better teamwork and improved outcomes. It’s not a nice-to-have, cognitive collaboration is needed now more than ever.

In fact, in a recent survey, 90% of knowledge workers said they want a solution with cognitive collaboration capabilities “as soon as possible” to help increase productivity and provide them with the contextual information they need, when they need it.

Watch this video to see how Cognitive Collaboration for Cisco Webex can harness better meeting experiences:

Collaboration AI-Driven Features

Cognitive collaboration capabilities include:

Relationship Intelligence: AI-generated people profiles and facial recognition provide instant access to contextually relevant information on the people you collaborate with (see People Insights)

Intelligent Transcription: Transcription services are intelligent, pulling out key meeting highlights and providing highly accurate live transcription (see Voicea)

Digital Assistants and Bots: Digital assistants and bots offload time consuming tasks from the collaboration experience (see Webex Assistant)

Jumpstart Collaboration

When people are armed with the information they need, when they need it, it jump-starts the collaboration process. For example, when a new team is formed, instant access to people profiles can help team members get to know the people they are collaborating with by quickly learning about roles and responsibilities while discovering shared interests and backgrounds.

For a new team member, access to past recorded meetings, transcriptions, key meeting highlights and profiles can help them onboard faster and quickly understand the team dynamics.

All of this adds up to a collaboration experience that’s designed to proactively support the modern workforce and produce more engaged and productive teams.

The Future is Cognitive

When it comes to the future of work, one thing is certain – no matter what new process or methodology comes along, no one is slowing down. Those who can get to market faster with high quality products and services will enjoy a competitive advantage and those who can jump start team collaboration in a dynamic environment will have a good head start. With cognitive collaboration, disrupting the market doesn’t have to come at the cost of collaboration.

Learn more about how Cognitive Collaboration Solutions can enable high performance teams and elevate customer experiences with artificial intelligence.

More resources

The Future of Collaboration: Real-Time Artificial Intelligence Insights at Your Fingertips

How AI is Changing the Game for Knowledge Workers

Getting to Know You- The Three-Dimensional Cognitive Workspace