Generative AI: Can it truly enhance collaboration within the enterprise?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently one of the biggest trends when it comes to innovation and the future of work. Actually, most of the opportunities recently developed in this field concern generative AI (or GenAI). This is a branch of artificial intelligence that relies on machine learning and deep learning to create content generation models based on a precise context.

Thanks to these models, generative AI now has applications in many sectors. From content or code creation to ideation, it can even be used for training and coaching. The result is considerable time savings and productivity gains for organizations.

Nevertheless, analysts agree that, in the long term, generative AI will not replace human workers, but will increase their ability to perform higher value-added tasks. So there are still many areas where human intervention is required, especially when it comes to collaboration between teams.

Since collaboration is our favorite topic at Klaxoon, we wondered what AI has in store for the way we work together in the coming years. What role will it play in helping us with every interaction, anytime, anywhere? To what extent will it be able to replace or enhance the power of collective intelligence? This is what we are going to find out in this guide (which you can also download in PDF format).

Generative AI: Usages and challenges

According to McKinsey, 65% of companies are regularly using generative AI in June 2024, which is almost double the 33% recorded in the second half of 2023. In the same study, 3 out of 4 organizations also announce that AI will have a significant impact on their industry in the coming years.

Moreover, an analysis by Accenture determined that 40% of working hours could currently be optimized using generative AI. Thus, there are many possible use cases for organizations:

• Automate the creation of content, graphics, reports, media or documents;
• Structure project stages;
• Analyze customer feedback;
• Generate forecasts for complex scenarios;
• Detect security breaches or phishing attempts,...

What about collaboration, then? When it comes to day-to-day interaction and team engagement, is AI just as effective? According to a study by Forrester, 55% of organizations use generative AI to optimize their internal operations, which therefore also includes collaboration and communication. But generative AI has limitations that mean it can't yet take the place of an effective team.

Generative AI is just getting started when it comes to collaboration

When the collective and human input cannot be replaced

Effective collaboration means exchanging ideas, adapting and listening to each other to make the best decisions. To achieve this, it is human collaborators who remain the most qualified today. Generative AI, however powerful, still has its limits when collaboration involves:

• Thinking at a complex level;
• Empathy ;
• Adaptability;
• Ethical judgment;
• Effective decision-making;
• Creating social relationships.

What's more, current tools based on generative AI cannot do without humans to monitor and check what they are proposing. As the content created may contain data from uncertain sources, or even hallucinations (wrong assertions), this lack of reliability can lead to legal problems if teams do not follow up upstream.

In some cases, this can lead to restrictive measures being taken regarding the use of generative AI in collaboration. For example, Samsung decided to completely ban its use internally, after sensitive data was communicated to programs and then disseminated to other users.

At the current stage of development of this technology, it is therefore still difficult to properly gauge the degree of autonomy that can be granted to AI. This can also lead to teams wasting time by systematically going back over their tool. This is what happened with M, a Facebook AI assistant designed to answer users' questions. It turned out that the chatbot was most often hiding a person, as management wanted to be sure that the AI was not communicating errors.

It is a fact: today, you can't rely entirely on generative AI for all aspects of your collaboration. The added value of the human and the collective remains too important, especially when it comes to assessing, judging, and interacting with other individuals.

However, in the right context and with the right objectives, generative AI can still enable you to improve your collaboration in other ways, for example by helping you to structure it better and speed it up.

How can you benefit from AI in your daily collaboration?

According to a study by Akumina, 72% of corporate decision-makers agree that AI can enable human workers to focus on higher value-added work.

Generative AI can indeed play a part in your collaboration process, but first you need to identify three types of tasks:

• Those that AI can handle entirely;
• Those that AI can partially handle;
• Those that AI cannot handle at all.

In addition, make sure you systematically align your usage with your business objectives. Whatever your context, the use of AI must always be justified by the value it generates for your teams and your organization, above and beyond any concern for your brand image or innovation process.

Complementarity between generative AI and analytical AI

Very often, generative AI also integrates analytical capabilities. In a collaborative context, the two work together in a complementary way to better respond to user requests:

• Generative AI functionalities are used to generate ideas, text, media, etc.
• Analytical AI functionalities are used to process large volumes of data, classify and categorize it, etc.

Currently, a majority of organizations in all fields are planning to invest at least 5% of their digital budget in generative or analytical AI, to accelerate and simplify the work of their teams (McKinsey).

This complementary approach is also reflected in Klaxoon's all-in-one collaboration platform. Board, our collaborative whiteboard, lets you combine the use of generative AI and analytical AI, anytime, anywhere. For example, you can create a summary of your ideas and categorize them efficiently, or even combine the two to create a complete action plan.

AI and collaboration: What benefits for your communication?

Accenture's previous study shows that 62% of employee tasks are language-related. So there are many communication-related actions where you can benefit from the power of artificial intelligence:

1. Hybrid and asynchronous work

In a hybrid or asynchronous work context, AI plays a role of reassurance for human workers. For example, they can call on it like an office colleague to ask quick questions, request confirmation, or generate a content base and rework it rather than starting from a blank page.

In some contexts, AI can also help you reduce the digital communication load on your teams. Indeed, when employees communicate in writing and remotely, they can never be sure that their recipient is available to answer them right away. What's more, the written word takes more time to formulate than a question quickly asked orally in the office. In case of doubt, AI can help employees to think things through, while they wait for their colleagues to be available or to reply asynchronously.

2. Written communication

There are even more possibilities offered by artificial intelligence tools for written communication:

• Rewriting
• Rephrasing
• Change of tone in a text
• Categorization
• Translation, etc.

This makes it easier not only to structure and convey a message, but also to work with international teams. AI helps to break down geographical barriers, so teams can devote their time to working together on their subjects, rather than trying to understand each other.

With Klaxoon, you will also soon be able to translate the content of your ideas in Board into no less than a hundred languages, thanks to the power of AI!

3. Visual communication

In addition to the written word, you can use AI as a lever to improve your visual communication. For example, you can quickly update your communication materials by generating an image or graphic from a prompt.

Before or after a presentation or meeting, you can also use analytical AI to visually organize your ideas in your workspace. With Klaxoon, the “Group by topic” feature does just that.

4. Training and coaching

Finally, good communication is essential in training, where you can give AI the role of a coach to guide participants in applying what they have learned.

In the latter case, AI simplifies learning step by step and, when only one solution exists and is clearly identified, it can be very effective in coaching learners by asking them questions to move forward, without actually solving the problem for them.

AI and collaboration: What benefits for your organization?

The second aspect of collaboration where you can harness the power of AI is in your organization. Like a ready-to-use method, AI can help you set up a structured workspace, which serves as the basis for a brainstorming session or project kickoff, and enables you to be more effective in your collaboration.

1. The preparation phase

Good preparation is essential for gathering participants' expectations before a meeting, sharing resources before a training session, or identifying the stakeholders to be involved. To optimize this stage, you can use AI to :

• List the right questions to ask yourself to get started;
• Identify the key roles in your project or exchange;
• Set up a problem-solving process;
• Define the next steps...

2. Information synthesis

Artificial intelligence can also intervene after a discussion, to facilitate the synthesis of your thoughts:

• Simplify the creation of reports or minutes;
• Classify your documents or files;
• Summarize your exchanges.

Klaxoon also has a dedicated “Create a summary” feature for this purpose. Thanks to this, you can have a clear overview of a large number of ideas shared in your Boards, and instantly understand the context of a discussion or the conclusion of a brainstorming session.

3. Decision-making support

Finally, artificial intelligence can support you by providing guidance for more effective decision-making.

For example, the AI-based features in Klaxoon Board enable you to generate a complete action plan from your ideas. This visually organized action plan feeds your thinking and speeds up implementation.

The use of AI requires team skill development

For all these applications in your collaboration, using AI involves training your teams beforehand. In a context where the technology itself is continuously evolving, it is particularly important to take the time to educate teams on the areas where it can bring real value and to encourage them to test and adopt it as a tool, while being aware of its current limitations.

The use of artificial intelligence in companies is innovative: it is both driven by leaders and initiated by employees. To master it, the use of AI must be framed with governance and a training program.

To get off to a good start under these conditions, it may be wise to begin using AI in a structured workspace, where it comes as a feature. This way, it adds value but remains within a secure framework designed to guide you in its use, and remind you of the need for verification.

Furthermore, 35% of organizations believe that one of the main barriers to using generative AI is the difficulty of integrating it with their existing infrastructure (Forrester). But with a collaboration platform like Klaxoon, AI is already embedded directly in your online workspace. This ensures easier adoption, and therefore accelerated training and improved collaboration thanks to these tools.