In July, Espria, a provider of digital workspace solutions, hosted their Optimise 2024 Q3 webinar, which focussed on supporting operational teams and services with AI-driven tools and featured discussions with some of their key solutions partners from, Gamma, Sophos, Xerox, and TP-Link.
AI in the workplace
These industry pioneers came together in an open forum to discuss AI in the workplace, identifying key benefits and challenges that have arisen and will continue to occur as more and more companies utilise new technologies.
Key elements included applications enabling data access, business cybersecurity, and shoring up enterprise strategy.
AI enhancing SME experience
“We cannot ignore the impact of AI on the modern workforce,” kicked off panel Chair and CEO at Spreckley Partners Limited, Richard Merrin.
“There is so much confusion in the market about the issue of artificial intelligence, and how it impacts those in key business roles, e.g. finance, procurement, and supply chain. Questions need answering, and guidance is needed from industry pioneers when it comes to how AI can best enhance the SME experience.”
Efficient and ethical training
Importance of aligning AI tools with business strategies as they become more essential in the workplace
Greg Hawthorn, Managing Director, Cloud at Espria, highlighted the importance of aligning AI tools with business strategies as they become more essential in the modern workplace.
“The use cases for AI, and understanding them as they pertain to individual organisations, are the most important things for remaining competitive. However, training your staff to use AI efficiently and ethically is equally important. AI is not just a hot buzzword to be thrown around without really understanding how it can help your business. Learning to work with these tools should be a key part of any business strategy.”
Efficiency, productivity, and innovation
“A lot of businesses fear AI,” added Lauren Williams, UCaaS and CCaaS specialist at Gamma, “It’s not until they start delving into the world of AI that they start understanding just exactly what it can do for them."
"AI tools provide greater business efficiency, productivity, and innovation by streamlining routine tasks and providing the insight needed for enhanced decision-making."
Once-in-a-generation event
“AI is a once-in-a-generation event and needs not to be feared but embraced. Many businesses underestimate just how clever it can be, but AI is ultimately only as effective as the amount of data it has access to."
"So, for greater business telephony and giving your teams a greater voice, your employed AI tools also need to be curated for the most efficient usage and access of company data.”
Data and AI
Dale Callum, Sales Engineer for Sophos, continued, “Data, both volume and quality, is a vital part of effective AI use. Where humans can take days to go through and interpret data sets, large language models (LLM) can take mere minutes."
"AI is great for doing the heavy lifting; it can very quickly correlate and extrapolate information, useful not just for business operations but for managed detection and response analysis – a major part of business cybersecurity. AI has already proven it can deliver resolutions in minutes where, historically, response and remediation activities have taken hours or even days with traditional support capabilities.”
The weak link for cyber defence
“But we also need to shore up defences against attackers, as AI has similarly boosted their social engineering attempts to access weak points in company security. Humans remain the weak link for cyber defence, and AI now plays a part in the increased attack rate."
"Ultimately, AI is just a tool that can be utilised by good and bad actors, which means there is still a continued responsibility by people to do their part in protecting against damaging outcomes.”
Customer experience
Customer experience was highlighted as an area for massive improvement due to the impact of AI
Customer experience was additionally highlighted as an area for massive improvement due to the impact of AI. “It’s not displacing existing human resources but enabling them to be refocused for greater strategic thinking,” Hawthorn outlined.
“AI has the power to drive staff retention, give greater support in employee day-to-day tasks, and thus promote a higher quality end-product. It innovates to craft responses for end customers and provide a much more consistent experience, particularly when your existing workforce might be more dispersed.”
Holistic approach
"AI is the cornerstone for the future of work that enterprises of all sizes must embrace rather than fear. As industry experts, we have a responsibility to look at the situation holistically, including the knock-on effects of decisions made."
"Still, we need to be concerned with how AI and data is treated, ensuring it is used in an ethical yet concise way."
Optimise event
"With support from Espria, operational teams can trust that their IT service provider has their best business interests at heart with improved access to the latest technologies.”
Espria will return for the next Optimise event on 17th October, with their last discussion focussed on technology to improve the customer experience – “Love Your Customers!” which will feature a new panel of guest speakers from top vendor partners.
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