The rise of GenAI in the workplace

Generative AI (Gen AI) has surged to the forefront of the working world and become a fixture of modern business vocabulary. The promises it of fers are enormous, but the reality is stark: most organizations are struggling to turn its promise into performance. Despite its rapid rise from niche technology to pervasive force across industries, the hard truth is that 90% of Gen AI projects fail to move beyond the proof-of-concept (POC) phase.

This illustrates that the time for passive exploration has passed. Organizations must now shift from mere fascination with Gen AI’s potential to actively pursuing its integration and implementation to unlock real business value. Without the right strategy and support, the window to capitalize on this transformative technology is rapidly closing.

This entails embracing an approach to Gen AI centered around:
• Increasing worker productivity
• Streamlining processes
• Simplifying operations for employees
• Providing upskilling opportunities

Consider the impact of Gen AI on optimizing a supply chain. By leveraging Gen AI solutions, organizations can analyze and forecast demand more accurately, enabling more ef ficient supply chains. This means reducing overstock and stockouts, lowering inventory holding costs, and ensuring product availability, which improves both cash flow and profit margins.

Additionally, Gen AI can enable quick access to information. When learning something new, employees can easily turn to tools like ChatGPT for concise, approved summaries and explanations, thereby accelerating their understanding and job proficiency. However, all these possibilities do not come without potential pitfalls.

Challenges in realizing Gen AI’s full workplace potential

As more individuals gain real-world experience with AI, the capacity to apply this technology within workplace settings has significantly increased. This growing familiarity paves the way for more effective and widespread implementation of AI solutions in various professional environments.

However, one of the main challenges organizations face regarding AI integration stems from undefined outcomes. Many organizations may struggle to clearly state what they aim to achieve with AI, leading to user-centric challenges where employees are either unable or unwilling to utilize Gen AI effectively within their workflows. This lack of clear objectives can hinder the potential transformative benefits of AI, making it essential for businesses to set well-defined goals from the outset.

Many AI projects fail. Some estimates place the failure rate as high as 80% — almost double the rate of corporate IT project failures a decade ago.

The UK AI market alone is worth more than £16.9 billion and is expected to grow to £800 billion by 2035.

Enabling businesses to harness the full potential of GenAI

At Fujitsu, we help leaders transition from being observers to active participants in harnessing the potential of Gen AI. This shift is crucial for ensuring organizations are well-equipped for this new phase of technological advancement. When employers fully understand how to prepare their employees for this new working world by involving and engaging them in the implementation of a new technology, processes can become collaborative, rather than directive.

By doing so, stakeholders can foster a more inclusive and effective integration of AI, ensuring that employees feel capable of leveraging AI tools in their daily tasks, creating a dynamic and adaptive environment where your workforce is at the forefront of innovation.

What is the biggest barrier to adopting Gen AI in your workplace?

Lack of knowledge/training
Unclear business value
Cost of implementation
Resistance from employees
Security and compliance concerns

Defining clear outcomes for Gen AI implementation

Senior leaders recognize the transformative power of Gen AI, however, there may be uncertainty about how to maximize its potential. While the latest Gen AI applications can perform a variety of routine tasks, be that reorganizing and classifying data, or automatically responding to emails, the potential is so transformative it can be initially daunting.

Naturally, this leads to organizations approaching Gen AI cautiously, trialing it with a small cohort of employees, or for a single use case, before gradually scaling up as its value becomes evident. By taking a human-centric approach to understanding the work individuals do, Fujitsu can help unlock significant productivity benefits that extend beyond the trial period.

By defining clear goals and prioritizing key business areas where efficiency improvements can be made, organizations can ensure they focus their efforts and investment into areas that will deliver the most tangible results.

Do you think your organization has clearly defined goals for GenAI implementation?

Yes, very clear goals
Somewhat clear goals
We are working to set our goals
No, we don’t have any goals