What the Rise of Generative AI Means for the Digital Workforce
Artificial Intelligence (AI) milestones, from the introduction of Unimate, the first industrial robot, to AlphaGo defeating three-time champion Fan Hui at Go, the world’s most complex board game, put AI on a pedestal. With every milestone, AI slowly became just another tool in technology’s cabinet of curiosities without every day, real-world applications—until the introduction of Generative AI.
Thanks to their extensive utility, generative AI (GenAI) applications have captured people's attention in ways AlphaGo, DeepMind, or autonomous vehicles couldn’t. For the first time, the average person may use AI tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot to solve daily challenges at work or in their personal lives at little to no cost, successfully engraving AI into our consciousness.
Presently, approximately 75% of GenAI users intend to use AI to automate work-related tasks and fine-tune work communications. Additionally, more people use GenAI when embedded into existing applications they’re comfortable with than as a training or standalone tool. Thus highlighting its growing importance to the digital workforce and the need to understand its current and future impact.
The Digital Workforce and GenAI: Advantages to Industries Leveraging Both
Statistics show that the top industries adopting digital transformation technologies that drive the digital workforce coincide with the adoption rate of GenAI. According to an IDG research on adopting digital-first business strategies, the financial services industry leads with a 93% adoption rate, healthcare comes in second at 92%, and retail is a close third. Correspondingly, the financial service industry leads the adoption of GenAI at 40%, with the financial services and the healthcare industry rounding up the top three.
Current Application of GenAI in Retail
The retail sector currently utilises GenAI as a tool to optimise its:
- Supply chain planning process – Simulation modelling and demand forecasting tools integrate GenAI to forecast demand and optimise inventories.
- Optimise customer support – AI assistants and chatbots answer customer queries and resolve shopping-related issues in real-time.
- Personalised shopping experiences – AI assistants are used for marketing and sales and to provide customers with customised or self-service shopping options.
The example of a retailer with 5000 customer service agents highlights current applications of GenAI. Here, the organisation developed an AI assistant to assist its growing customer base with real-time answers to queries. Leveraging GenAI, the retailer reduced the time spent answering a query by 9% and increased its hourly resolution rate by 14%. It also reduced requests to speak to a manager by 25%, giving managers more time to focus on other core responsibilities.
Current Application of GenAI in Finance
The financial services sector leverages GenAI to solve its most pressing challenges, including:
- Providing personalised customer support – Using AI assistants to analyse customer data to provide financial advice or answer questions.
- Ensuring Compliance and Managing Risk – By automating the implementation of governance, compliance, and data privacy regulations across digital infrastructure.
- Customer Retention – Providing optimised financial services that address customers’ pain points.
GenAI leverages financial organisations' operational data to assist bankers, accountants, treasury managers, and fintech service providers with communication, collaboration, cybersecurity, and customer care. CoPilot for Microsoft 365 provides practical examples of GenAI’s application in the finance industry.
Copilot’s ability to access an organisation’s Intranet, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams to generate texts, PowerPoint presentations, and other analytical data can increase productivity by 4.7%. Using CoPilot may be likened to outsourcing tasks to a digital coworker who understands the organisation’s internal governance procedures and has access to customer data. GenAI does the heavy lifting by automating tasks such as generating financial documentation, cash forecasts, credit checks, and the text needed to communicate decisions to customers.
Current Application of GenAI in Healthcare
Pharmaceuticals and healthcare service providers use GenAI as an automation tool to manage time-consuming activities and to deliver personalised care. Current applications include:
- Personalising patient care – AI assistants analyse patients' treatment data to generate personalised treatment recommendations.
- Optimising healthcare operations and planning – AI-driven digital twins and simulation models leverage historical operational data to optimise capacity and scheduling plans.
- Implement governance and privacy policies – AI assistants guide and remind caregivers to follow recommended policies when providing care.
Leveraging GenAI to detect early signs of patient deterioration in a general ward, which is generally run at total capacity, is an example of its ability to support the delivery of personalised care and optimise operations. A healthcare provider with an extensive medical-surgery practice integrated GenAI to analyse the vital signs captured from postoperative patients. Here, it is worth noting that approximately one in five postoperative patients experience adverse severe events, underscoring the need for constant vigilance.
Automating the patient monitoring process enabled the hospital to identify signs of deteriorating patients and respond quickly or proactively. GenAI’s ability to derive insight from analysing patient data ensured the hospital reduced severe adverse events in the general ward by 35% and the risk of cardiac arrest to postoperative patients by 86%.
The Future: Driving Innovation in the Digital Workplace
GenAI is expected to boost productivity by 1.5 percentage points over ten years and the global GDP by 7%. Some of its futuristic applications across the finance, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing industries are driving these projections.
For the banking and finance industry, GenAI will be used to build super-intelligent proprietary apps to reduce the considerable costs associated with back-office operations. These intelligent apps would ease communication and collaboration activities in the digital workforce by serving as governance, social, and environmental experts who answer complex prompts.
In healthcare, GenAI is expected to assist professionals in diagnosing and recommending patient treatment, optimise clinical trials, and imaging diagnostics. Examples include improving patient positioning and CT image reconstruction and minimising equipment downtime. As a communication and collaborative tool, GenAI will guide physicians performing invasive surgeries and support multidisciplinary cancer and genomics research.
The consumer goods and retail industry is also expected to expand its use of GenAI to deliver exceptional customer service. Internally, GenAI will support the management of digital inventories and the digital warehouse to simplify evaluating supply chains and restocking inventory. At the storefront, GenAI will continue to assist customers with personalising shopping experiences and customising products to meet specific needs.
Getting Started: Adopting GenAI and Addressing Expected Challenges
As GenAI matures, more businesses intend to utilise it to streamline business activities. In Singapore,companies expect to utilise GenAI to add business value now and in the future. Despite this optimistic view, businesses have voiced concerns about its use within the digital workplace. Approximately 49% of companies express data privacy and security concerns, 35% worry about the ethical aspect of using AI, and 47% believe it should be regulated.
The example of Microsoft’s chatbot, Tay, going rogue on X, previously known as Twitter, after ingesting social media data underscores the validity of these concerns. Consequently, adopting GenAI requires rigorous consideration of its ethical and security challenges.
Experienced digital transformation service providers become partners that help the average organisation navigate the challenges of applying GenAI to boost productivity and its ethical issues. The right digital transformation partner will integrate into your digital transformation journey and simplify the application of GenAI within your digital workforce. Learn how to choose a high-performing partner.
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As a pioneer in document solutions for over 50 years, FUJIFILM Business Innovation Singapore has a deep understanding of how businesses operate. Our mission is to empower organisations to work efficiently and effectively in the digital age. We offer a comprehensive suite of digital transformation solutions and services, partnering our customers in managing data to automate workflows, leverage data intelligence, and build exceptional customer experiences.
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