As companies embrace AI, these leaders offer tips to make it better

Miami Herald

02-07-2025

In 2025, it seems like just about everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and its myriad potential uses.
"I have never seen any buzzword so quickly adopted," said Leila Rao, founder of Decatur, Georgia-based organizational change consultancy AgileXtended. Rao helps guide companies through a variety of organizational changes, including navigating AI.
Increasingly, Georgia businesses are using AI to simplify and streamline various tasks, such as scheduling, copywriting, directing phone calls and more. In their first survey on the topic, Duluth-based Moneypenny, a phone answering and customer contact service, found that 64% of companies are now either using or considering using AI as of May to "drive efficiency, enhance decision-making and supercharge growth."
Additionally, 25% of companies said they are "fully embracing" AI, though that definition was left up to the interpretation of survey respondents.
But is AI actually helping workers out as much as advertised?
Rao and a top executive from Moneypennysay that the current trend may be falling short of ideal, but improvement is within reach.
What's the draw?
Forms of AI have been used for years in many workplaces for data analytics, sales and other practices. But generative AI, powerful tools such as ChatGPT that can create original content, sounds, software code and assist in things like scientific research, has thrust AI into mainstream use.
One of the unique - and attractive - things about AI as a tool is its variability, according to Rao.
"With these new tools, there is no standardization because they are, almost by definition, interactive," Rao said.
Countless users have also been enticed by the speed of AI - both the speed with which it can complete tasks and with which new versions and capabilities are developed. This has been reflected in the quickly-developing pervasiveness of AI in business, according to Moneypenny North America CEO Richard Culberson.
Outsourcing tedium to machines
Some of the top areas where it's being adopted are marketing, content creation and analytics, Moneypenny found. According to Culberson, many of the tasks AI is being used for are under the umbrella of customer interactions.
The most cited benefits of embracing AI in business included cost and time savings, productivity efficiencies and better decision-making.
"The business is interested, I think, mostly in how AI can fix some of the fundamental friction or drag in organizations," Rao said.
Certain complex tasks are typically better left to human workers, or at having their involvement, both Rao and Culberson agreed. But Rao noted that complexity can be deceptive. Scheduling is typically done at a low level of anorganization, but can be complex in practice because of many moving parts, she noted.
Culbersonsaid he favors methods that rely on human-AI collaboration to complete tasks. He cited copywriting, whether that be a human writing something for the AI to polish or vice versa, as an example of a good hybrid use.
Is it actually helping?
While manycompanies are diving into the world of AI and companies are making huge investments in expanding capabilities, the question remains whether these implementations are actually showing benefits or are just something for C-suite executives to flaunt.
"Everybody's saying AI can give you more efficiency … the problem is, that's not translating for the recipient," Rao said.
According to Rao, while higher-ups may be excited about their company's AI models, the actual workers on the ground aren't experiencing much growth or otherwise seeing significant benefits from the implementation of these systems.
"More often than not, what I am seeing is the people who rave about AI outcomes are not connected to the work itself," Rao said.
She isn't hating on AI as a whole though. On the contrary, she loves it - when it's used to its strengths.
"I rely on AI more than I ever thought I would," she said. "But it's not a replacement for my people."
The problem is, according to Rao, that many companies are failing to take the people into consideration.
"There's not enough shared understanding, between AI and the people who do the work, to make meaning happen," Rao said.
Part of the disconnect is emotional, Rao says; the increasing use of and conversation around AI is triggering fear among workers that they'll be replaced or deprioritized. In part, these fears are stoked by miscommunications from higher-ups failing to have a two-way conversation with these workers.
Additionally, there tends to be a gap in understanding between what executives and decision-makers think and hear, versus what it's actually like doing the work on the ground, which can lead to misguided assumptions.
"Despite their best efforts, leaders tend to talk to other leaders more often than they talk to and listen to their staff," Rao said.
Moneypenny found that 50% of companies surveyed say they need better guidance on how to effectively implement AI, something both Rao and Culberson's companies are working to provide.
These companies need help understanding how to blend "the empathy and the depth from a human perspective, as well as the technical competencies and efficiency and cost savings you get from AI," Culberson said.
Part of the problem is where the AI is actually being implemented within organizations.
"Very few people in business are looking across all of their departments and seeing how it can be leveraged in the right way," Culberson said.
Addressing key concerns
According to Moneypenny's findings, the three biggest concerns around AI are job loss, data security and customer dissatisfaction.
To deal with the first problem, Moneypenny promotes a "human-centric" approach. Rao also encourages actually making AI use and development a process involving collaboration across the entire organization.
"It has to be an iterative process that feels very much like a conversation," Rao said.
She urges companies to have conversations - and lots of them - with people who haven't been represented in the rooms where decisions are made.
As part of the process, she suggests focusing on training AI as a coach or assistant, rather than a tool to actually complete tasks - similar to Culberson's hybrid approach. Both agreed that AI should support - not replace - workers.
"People who will win in the use of AI will start to elevate their own people and not eliminate their people with it," Culberson said.
Having "good, productive conversations" and learning with clients are also vital for assuaging customer concerns, according to Culberson.
"People want to know they're being taken care of," he said.
This is an area that may see a lot of growth and advancement over the next 12-18 months.
Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.