Advanced technology like artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, the Internet of Things, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and streaming video capabilities have significantly changed the workplace over the past few years. We expect to continue to see the workplace evolve and change rapidly as these technologies become even more advanced. With the shutdown of many office spaces during the global pandemic, companies were forced to quickly implement backup strategies while relying heavily on technology to allow their employees to work from home safely. According to the World Economic Forum, “Two-thirds of people worldwide want to work flexibly when the COVID-19 pandemic is over”. Companies are also finding this a win-win for the employee, and the company, since this both reduces operational costs dramatically while providing an opportunity to reinvent the workplace to be exponentially more efficient.
Evolving communication tools
We all witnessed companies scrambling to ensure the best video conferencing, chat solutions, collaboration and planning tools, and virtual events to accommodate at-home workers. Although many of these communication solutions were in place before the pandemic, reliance on them has increased significantly, further propelling technological advancements. From collaborative enterprise architecture that facilitates broader and more efficient communication to AI-enhanced video conferencing that records, transcribes, and translates conferences, workers now have more ways to connect and communicate globally.
Increased business productivity
Companies have benefited from increased hyper-automation recently, providing many ways to automate mundane and repetitive tasks through robotic process automation (RPA). With advances in technology such as Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (that strive to mimic human intelligence), organizations are processing and dissecting vast amounts of data in record time.
Where what once involved departments spending significant resources collecting, organizing, cleaning, and modeling data with large teams of data scientists, analysts, RPA experts, etc., now many of the associated tasks are automated to a large degree. AI is taking charge and automating much of the heavy lifting. Advancements such as auto-generated learned algorithms (AutoML) minimizes human dependency improving accuracy and throughput, allowing for the processing of large amounts of data in far less time than could be achieved by humans alone.
A sample of other areas where advanced technology is moving the needle include:
· Automated Call Management
· Real-Time Operations
· Leveraging Smart Chatbots
· Virtual Assistants
· Predictive Sales
· Transforming Procurement
· Streamlining Recruitment
Improved cost management
With an evolving workplace, there is a cost shift. Acquiring and implementing new hardware and software involves incremental investments. ROI on such implementations usually derives from decreased total labor cost, typically the highest cost of any endeavor. Further, gains may be found in repurposing project staff to areas that provide more bang for the buck.
With the trend of remote and hybrid work models, companies may realize significant savings in infrastructure costs. Global Research Analytics shows substantial savings to companies with their research, “Details behind the estimate that employers can save an average of $11k/year for each halftime remote worker”.
Strengthened security
It is essential to talk about cyber-security in an evolving workplace. While there was an explosion of risks during the pandemic resulting in added costs for most organizations, there has also been a shift in how we view cyber-security. As a result, tremendous advances in cyber-security have occurred, including machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision technology. These breakthroughs are helping keep company information more secure by providing enhanced insights that improve defense and reduce time to corrective action to subvert attacks. AI rapidly gathers, processes, and analyzes data as an advanced capability to stop threats in their tracks.
Transforming the workplace with IoT
The Internet of Things (IoT) is no exception to the remarkable technological advances. It allows data transfer over a network without requiring human input, and mobile apps can also authenticate users when trying to access sensitive information.
Just a few other uses of IoT:
· More efficient data gathering from multiple sources
· Understanding customer behavior
· Operational management
· Smart scheduling
· Advanced security
· Location tracking
The future of the workplace
Indeed, technology has been rapidly advancing over the past few years, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic that has reinvented the workplace. And this transformation is set to take a new form in the near future. Advances in AR/VR are taking shape that will only contribute to a whole new concept of how and where we work. See our article about The Role of AI and Data Science in the Metaverse to learn more about these technologies. All of this is good news to employers and employees alike as the continued workplace improvements allow employees more time to focus on important things like customer service or contributing better ideas to projects which ultimately translates to the corporate bottom line.
If you are interested in learning more about the application of advanced technology in the workplace, email us at intellect2@intellect2.ai. Intellect Data, Inc. is a software solutions company incorporating data science and artificial intelligence into modern digital products with Intellect2TM. IntellectDataTM develops and implements software, software components, and software as a service (SaaS) for enterprise, desktop, web, mobile, cloud, IoT, wearables, and AR/VR environments. Locate us on the web at www.intellect2.ai.