With new innovations in the artificial intelligence space coming daily, how are leaders able to build a workplace for whatever the future holds?
ADP’s Sameera Sreepada speaks with Naomi Lariviere and Helena Almeida about the pace of change and the best way to prepare workers for agentic AI.
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Transcript:
Sameera Sreepada
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve. More employers are trying to figure out what the next wave of innovation means for their workforce. With me to talk about the next evolution of AI at work, our vice president and managing counsel, Helena Almeida, and vice president and chief product owner Naomi Lariviere. So we've seen a boost of innovation since generative AI was introduced a few years ago. How would you describe the state of AI today?
Naomi Lariviere
Oh my gosh, it's it's frenetic. There's so much coming at us all at the same time. You know, as a technologist, it's been like drinking through a fire hose for the last two years because, you know, we had ChatGPT come out and then, you know, everybody else with their models, anthropic and Google. And every day, every 48 hours, there's something new that is coming our way, whether it's a new bell or whistle or new model that we have to play with. And I think, you know, frenetic is also exciting. It means that there's more tools in our toolkit that we can actually leverage for innovation going forward.
Helena Almeida
Yeah, I know from my from my role at ADP, I'm always thinking about how to make sure that our products comply with laws and help our clients comply with their responsibilities and, you know, when when generative AI first came out, it was, how do we fold this into our existing processes? What new risks is generative AI going to bring to the workplace? And what should we be thinking about adding to our processes to make sure that we're thinking about those new risk? Because we've been working with traditional artificial intelligence for a while. What was new about generative AI was this, you know, we started hearing words like hallucinate. You started hearing, you know, questions about accuracy and privacy. So we had to make sure that we were thinking about all those things. And the the pace of change, has definitely been exciting. I have a completely different job today than I did probably three years ago.
Sameera
So with things moving so fast, and technology evolving, how can businesses look for ways to leverage, AI and all its forms?
Naomi
You know, one of the things that I would like if I was talking to a client and, we, they were asking me, what would I do? I'd say, really take a good look at what problem you're trying to solve. This technology is so powerful in so many different ways. You have to know where to apply it and what's going to be its best use. So what I'd really think about is, you know, what does my process look like? Where my pain points, what's so time consuming? And especially with generative AI, it's really useful for efficiency plays. So if you are thinking, oh, this is a really manual process, that's the place where you start and then start small and gain wins as you go. And the more you learn about the technology, the better off you're going to be.
Sameera
We know the value that I can bring employees and their organizations, but everyone's in a different stage of their AI adoption. What's the best approach for them to identify what I use cases or what AI technology they should adopt?
Helena
A lot of what, people are worried about is how do I deal with all the compliance risk? Think about what you should be doing it with, not what you can do, because you can do a lot of different things with artificial intelligence. But really, the key is where will it help us? What should we be doing and build it around an ethical framework. Right. So at ADP we have a set of principles that guide us when we're making decisions about how to use artificial intelligence. And that includes things like human in the loop and includes things about like making sure that we're, transparent when we're designing our artificial intelligence so people know they're interacting with with AI and they can make decisions about how best to use it.
Naomi
I think it's really important. You know, at ADP we talk about data as our foundation. It is the center of all of it. So one thing first start with getting your data house in order. It's really important that you don't have your data scattered all over the place because, it makes it more difficult to look at. That's probably the easiest way to say it. But then from there, you know, think about what causes your own customers friction points. What are, employees talking about? That those are the things that you want to key in on. And, you know, at ADP, we spend a lot of time looking at, you know, what's important to our clients. What what are they saying matters most to them and bringing them into our design process as we go through that journey. Constantly, you know, discussing, you know, is this going to increase their efficiency? Does it help them make their day better? Is it making it, helping them to make smarter decisions? And ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, it's all about people. So like, does it make their people's, experience better?
