Turbocharging Organizational Learning With GenAI
By working together, humans and machine agents can significantly expand knowledge-sharing, innovation, and competitive advantage.
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How to Maximize the Business Value of Generative AI
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CGINeil Webb
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.
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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.
References
1. K. Hu, “ChatGPT Sets Record for Fastest-Growing User Base — Analyst Note,” Reuters, Feb. 2, 2023, www.reuters.com.
2. Sandeep Sacheti, Wolters Kluwer, interview with the author, October 2024.
3. E. Brynjolfsson, D. Li, and L.R. Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” working paper 31161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2023 (revised November 2023).
4. F. Dell’Acqua, E. McFowland III, E. Mollick, et al., “Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality,” working paper 24-013, Harvard Business School, Boston, September 2023.
5. P. Baier, J. Hexter, and J.J. Sviokla, “Where Should Your Company Start With GenAI?,” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 11, 2023, https://hbr.org.
6. K. Kilkenny, “Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion on Hold After Seeing OpenAI’s Sora: ‘Jobs Are Going to Be Lost,’” The Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 22, 2024, www.hollywoodreporter.com.
7. P.G.W. Keen and M.S. Scott Morton, “Decision Support Systems: An Organizational Perspective” (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1978); R.N. Anthony, “Planning and Control Systems: A Framework for Analysis” (Boston: Division of Research, Harvard Business School, 1965); and A. Newell and H.A. Simon, “Human Problem Solving” (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972).