Turbocharging Organizational Learning With GenAI

Generative AI can radically improve an organization’s ability to learn. With OpenAI’s introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, for the first time in the 200-plus-year history of advanced automation, the machines talked back. Instead of having to “speak” Java or Python, people could use everyday dialogue — which is why the tool garnered more than 100 million users in its first two months of public availability.1

More profoundly, by facilitating interaction in human language and deftly handling unstructured words, images, numbers, and sounds, GenAI opened up an entirely new way of creating, capturing, and transferring organizational knowledge. In this article, we’ll argue that leaders need to embrace generative AI as a new organizational capability, and not just because it automates a variety of tasks economically. Combined with traditional AI, generative AI expands the scope of potential improvement in many processes and decisions and the ease with which this new knowledge can be applied. This, in turn, creates the potential for a positive compounding effect on organizational learning, with human and machine agents working in concert to create new competitive advantages.

Creating New Capability, Not Just Adopting New Technology

Paradoxically, the very generality and broad applicability of generative AI can make it challenging to adopt. In our research, we found that the most advanced organizations view GenAI not as a stand-alone technology but rather as an organizational capability. Two examples illustrate this perspective:

• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM): This $35 billion health insurer implemented a cross-functional GenAI/AI leadership team to educate employees about how to use the technologies, follow responsible AI practices, measurably enhance efficiency in a series of projects, and innovate on key processes such as contract review and benefits administration. When BCBSM applied a generative AI tool that enabled better analysis and standardization of terms and pricing across the company’s services, it recouped more than $10 million in savings after applying its GenAI tool to its existing IT contracts, which enabled better analysis and standardization for terms and pricing across the company’s services.
• Wolters Kluwer: This 4.2 billion euro business and academic information company built in organizational slack for learning. Leaders scheduled an hour a week during which everyone attended peer-led learning sessions, with the majority focused on practical GenAI/AI applications. This approach boosted employee skills, innovation, and even retention.