AI will make your people vital for Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Pic: Canva.
The rapid influx of the new wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools – from ChatGPT and DALL-E to Google Bard and New Bing Chat AI Chat – have brought predictions of job losses as processes currently done by people will in future be processed by AI-driven IT.
Many jobs will be lost, but these new AI tools will make your people and the soft skills they have vital for Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA), not less important.
How AI will impact Competitive Advantage
AI will automate most of data analysis and some parts of the execution of tactics, but it will create only temporary Competitive Advantage (CA) until rivals use the same tools to catch up. Levels of competitiveness (measured by Porter’s Five Forces) in each sector will be spread along a continuum, as at present. Constant innovation and level of agility in integrating new techniques and tools into practice will determine the leaders in each sector until the stragglers catch up.
Where will your Sustainable Competitive Advantage come from?
Strategy analysis and drafting (at least) of new and emergent strategy is AI-able, therefore not a source of SCA once all players in a market can do it – again only a source of temporary advantage.
So where’s your SCA going to come from? Some initial conclusions:
- Soft skills – where and while procurement is decided by human beings, how your people make those they sell to feel will be a source of CA. Especially when your offer is identical or close to that of rivals.
- The most impactful form of communication is Face-to-Face, 1-to-1[1]. So human contact and ability to communicate effectively will be more important as other sources of CA are eroded by AI. For this to be optimally effective, you need to make sure all your people (especially ‘Generation Z’ who favour text to talking) are good at making the most of ‘facetime’. For now, older people have an advantage in this.
- How to make long-term SCA in the New AI Age? Create a culture in your organisation of everyday creativity, innovation, service and support for employees as people, not units of human resource.
N.B. Related but not why I wrote this:
My client eTalent’s AI-driven recruitment tool can help you identify candidates with the best soft skills in seconds.
My client Vertical Motives can help you build the soft skills and service culture of your people.
My contact Billy Grierson is expert at improving your innovation culture via his company Perth Innovation.
[1] – Black, Caroline.; The PR Professional’s Handbook