From rocks to hammers to high-impact drills, for thousands of years, we've grown accustomed to holding tools in our hands. Now, more often, we're holding them in our minds. AI-enabled tools are rapidly growing more powerful and precise, and part of their predictive prowess lies in the ability to communicate through written and spoken words. This puts us on the verge of interacting with machines in much the same way we interact with humans, conversationally. Very soon, we will be having meaningful, ongoing, human-like relationships with machines.
According to Gartner, by 2025, generative AI will be a workforce partner within 90 per cent of companies worldwide Gartner is calling these partners digital teammates – I call them intelligent digital workers (IDWs) – and if we're going to populate our daily lives with scores of them, there's significant work to be done. Organisations need to develop clear strategies and build systems with intention. Designers need to poke lots of holes and develop the iterative chops to quickly plug them – or, better yet, quickly divert flows in safer directions. Users will need to be able to understand what kinds of systems they are interacting with
