EDITOR’S PICK

Leaders Need Training to Stand Strong in the Age of AI

It is undeniable: AI is here to stay. This means businesses will not only have to get familiar with how AI works, they will also have to determine how to best use AI. Hint: though it’s not the hammer for every nail, it is going to become the essential tool for any industry that makes intensive use of data (so, pretty much all of them).

The American Management Association and Management Centre Europe has continued to run surveys of business professionals to determine how they and their organizations are using AI. In the most recent study, featured in this issue’s cover story, AMA/MCE found that many organizations have made advances in deploying AI. The bad news is that many employees are lagging, with nearly three-fifths (58%) considering themselves behind in keeping up with AI. AMA/MCE experts say AI won’t necessarily take a knowledge worker’s job—but an individual at ease with harnessing the technology might.

Andrey Meshcheryakov, in ”Plugging People into AI Adoption,” states that for organizations to successfully adopt AI, they must consider how to empower their workforce to adapt to and thrive alongside AI. In “The Ultimate AI Playbook: From Measuring Adoption to Delivering Impact,” Jeremy Utley describes how organizations are measuring the wrong things and recommends that leaders identify a single, critical workflow, pilot a deeper AI approach, and then share those results across the organization. And in “In the Age of Digital Workers, You Still Have to be the Boss,” Jack Miller says that leaders must steer the hybrid evolution of work—the “digital employees” of AI and the human workers.

AMA/MCE will continue to monitor how organizations are using AI and use that knowledge to develop resources and programs for managers and their teams to best understand how this technology can support their organizations.