EDITORIAL AI
AI in Africa
To realise the promise of AI in Africa, we need to make AI work for employees.
By Zuko Mdwaba, Salesforce Area Vice President / Africa Executive and South Africa
Just as generative AI continues to open opportunities for businesses in Africa to change customer experiences and increase revenue, the benefits for workforce strategies and employees can be significant.
Indeed, executive urgency to incorporate AI tools into business operations has increased seven times over the past six months, according to Slack research.
Understanding AI personas in the workplace
The AI-powered future of work isn’ t just about efficiency, it’ s about employee experience— and it promises to redefine everything from careers to culture. But to make this future a reality, AI has to work for workers. Businesses need to create a workplace where humans and AI agents work successfully sideby-side.
To help employees understand where they are on their AI journey- and leaders know how best to support them- Slack’ s Workforce Lab identified five distinct AI personas in the workplace today.
The biggest group currently are‘ Maximalists’( 30 %), who use AI multiple times a week to improve their work. Next are‘ Undergrounds’( 20 %), those who use AI often, but are hesitant to share with their colleagues that they are doing so.
Whereas‘ The Rebels’( 19 %) avoid using AI and consider it unfair when coworkers engage with these tools, Superfans( 16 %) are excited, but aren’ t yet making the most use out of it at work. Observers( 16 %) have yet to integrate AI into their work. They are watching with interest and caution.
The benefits of AI adoption
By not adopting AI now, companies and employees alike risk missing out on tangible benefits— from improving efficiencies, to overall performance and productivity, to wellbeing.
Empowering employees to leave repetitive tasks to bots, so they can focus on more meaningful work isn’ t just good for employees, it’ s also good for business.
At Salesforce, we prioritised four enterprise-wide solutions designed to help enhance goal-setting, automate daily tasks, find information faster, and streamline support— all while freeing up our employee success and IT teams to focus on more complex tasks.
Key actions for leaders
Making AI work for workers requires leaders reimagining how they develop and train every part of their organisation. With perspectives and experiences of AI among desk workers varying so widely, a tailored approach to AI enablement is essential to setting every employee up for success.
Three key actions leaders can take to encourage AI adoption are creating a culture of continuous learning, giving visibility to use cases of AI, and encouraging experimentation.
Clear permission, guidance and training are critical to fostering AI adoption. Only 15 % of desk workers say they have the education and training necessary to use AI effectively. Those who are trained to use AI are up to 19x as likely to report that AI is improving their productivity.
Sharing how others are using and benefiting from AI tools and troubleshooting AI use cases will help clarify AI norms and
42 SA PROFILE www. saprofilemagazine. co. za