Cutting headcount is not a strategy
No company ever shrank to greatness. Sure, laying off staff in downturns may sometimes be necessary, and deploying AI as a way to do this may bring a short-term bump to the bottom line. But it’s missing the real opportunities AI presents and could actually do longer term damage to a business. Gartner predicts half of companies cutting customer service staff due to AI will rehire by 2027. They reason AI is just not mature enough to replace the subtleties and empathy that humans bring to customer interactions. The danger, Gartner argues, is that while immediate cost savings may be attractive, there’s a danger of unintended consequences further down the line.
This sentiment is echoed by Ronnie Sheth, CEO of SENEN, a strategic consultancy focused on data and AI. She warns against taking a technology-first approach such as deploying copilots and self-service chatbots without thinking about customer needs and preferences. It’s counterproductive, as a growing number of companies are finding, to handle more customer queries if customer satisfaction levels go down. “To truly realize value, AI initiatives should map directly to strategic business objectives by a defined percentage, not just internal soft metrics such as time saved,” Sheth says.
Focus on quality not quantity
In a world starting to drown in AI-generated slop, the quality of outputs and customer interactions will become ever-more important. Copilots and other AI tools can play a key role in driving quality up, but choosing the right metrics to measure this is key. Founder of technology advisory firm Deep Analysis, Alan Pelz-Sharpe sees the focus on deploying copilots primarily to raise employee outputs as a mistake. “Somebody might write more code, but is it good code and does it actually deliver measurable business value,” he asks. “So if your measurement is tasks completed per hour or headcount, you can argue that you did more, but did you do better, did you deliver enough value to justify the cost and change.”