The Future of AI Chatbots and the Millennial Workforce
Labor efficiency, cost-savings, and enterprise automation!
These are the benefits of enterprise AI chatbots that executives are discussing in boardrooms across the world.
But what if we told you that the real upside to implementing AI chatbots is not in the savings, but rather in the ability to elevate employee experiences (EX) within an enterprise?
While automated AI chatbot solutions do deliver an immediate ROI in the form of cost-savings and labor efficiencies, the number one reason enterprises should adopt chatbots and conversational AI is to create delightful experiences.
We’re talking about conversational experiences that make employees feel as great communicating within an enterprise as they do when texting their closest friends.
According to the Dell Future Workforce Study, “the future workforce will be more mobile and supported by an array of digital technologies…with Millennials taking the global reins on the introduction and adoption of new technology.”
In fact, according to a Brookings Report, “Millennials will comprise more than one of three adult Americans by 2020 and 75 percent of the workforce by 2025.”
However, despite these shifts in workplace attitudes and trends, the typical enterprise is still not embracing the needs and desires of digital-savvy workers of the future.
Not convinced? Well let’s take a look:
Workplace of Today
(Different Apps for Different Tasks)
Today’s workplace is still old-school. In fact, the average enterprise has nearly 700 apps and legacy software systems that are used for employee communication and collaboration with very few, if any, self-service options.
Therefore, navigating an enterprise in search of information has become a maze filled with time-consuming and administrative hurdles.
Employees are forced to follow strict workflows which are tedious, time-consuming, and highly inefficient in order to gather the right information from the right person for the job at hand.
According to a McKinsey report, “employees spend 1.8 hours every day — 9.3 hours per week, on average — searching and gathering information. Put another way, businesses hire 5 employees but only 4 show up to work; the fifth is off searching for answers, but not contributing any value.”
Now imagine the enterprise workplace in 2025 when digital-savvy millennials comprise 75% of the workforce.
Would you expect employee productivity to be driven by today’s strict and static workflows, or would you opt for an alternative solution where employees can access the information they need in a more nimble, evolving, and intelligent fashion?
As the Future Workforce Study** describes, in order for enterprises to stay competitive they must invest in smarter workplace technologies supporting a future workforce that is:
1. More Mobile
Employees’ in-person interactions will decrease yet collaboration will increase
2. More Productive
Better, faster technology, combined with more digitally-connected employees, will encourage increased productivity
3. More Capable
Employees will understand how to use technology, such as artificial intelligence, to better accomplish workplace goals
Chatbots and conversational AI offer the unique opportunity for enterprises to drive digital transformation across all areas of the workplace (customer support, sales, marketing, human resources, IT help desk, supply chain, payroll, etc). If done properly, enterprises can create a more unified and flexible workplace in the future:
Workplace of the Future
(AI Chatbot Trained for Different Tasks)
At Parlo we envision a workplace which relies less on the UI-based legacy apps of the past and more on AI chatbots powered by voice and text. This shift towards conversational AI will provide a unified enterprise view that offers more mobility for employees to communicate and access information across enterprise applications and business processes.
Say goodbye to the days when over 700 different workplace apps were required to accomplish 700 different tasks. The workforce of the future will allow employees to streamline communication across each area of the enterprise to complete daily tasks.
Gone will be the days of exchanging emails about HR related questions (benefits enrollment, PTO requests, vacation policies, etc).
There’s an HR bot for that!
Good riddance to spending hours opening cases for daily IT needs (password resets, printer issues, technical support, etc).
There’s an IT Help Desk bot for that!
According to the Future Workforce Study,
“Employees have seen first-hand the ways new technologies can help them do their jobs better, and are hungry to use the latest advancements to be more productive.
While this may seem daunting, it’s a business-critical opportunity for companies to be at the forefront of the future workplace and enable the future workforce.”
Conclusion
Enterprises have a critical choice to make.
They can continue building countless mobile apps to support the workplace of today, or they can embrace digital transformation in the form of AI chatbots to elevate employee experiences in the workplace of the future.
By embracing conversational AI and a digital-savvy millennial workforce, enterprises will benefit from a workplace that empowers more mobile, more productive, and more capable employees.
With the rise of text and voice-based messaging, employees are now accustomed to using digital applications on-the-go for internal team communication throughout the enterprise.
Whether it be customer relationship management, internal sales, order management, accounting, customer support, human resources, or IT, there’s a bot for that!
If you are ready to embrace AI chatbots, elevate employee experiences enterprise-wide, and build the workplace of the future, take our hand. We’ll show you how to quickly get started.
We believe that Human Resources and IT Help Desk are the best places to begin without replacing existing legacy apps and business processes.
Sources:
**The Dell Future Workforce Study included a poll of 4,000 full-time employees in small, medium and large businesses, in 10 countries. It says that the way we communicate will be the next thing to change, and AI should reach us ‘sooner than we think’.
If you found this article useful, please let us know your thoughts below. We regularly publish content like this on our blog in our mission to bring smarter AI to smarter enterprises.
Parlo builds smarter bots for smarter enterprises. We build AI chatbots that employ cutting-edge machine learning to seamlessly integrate with your business. They’ll support your human workforce, delight your customers, and save you time and money.
