In the first season of the Vincit Talks vodcast, female leaders in the IT industry will talk about important topics affecting organizations. Listen in to get insights, inspiration, and tips for developing and renewing the IT industry.
Now that companies are undergoing AI transformations, how do you explain to people what’s happening and encourage them to use new tools? Jenni Heinisuo, CIO at ISS, offered her insights on how to make this happen.
According to Jenni, the starting point is to find the places where AI can usefully make a difference to employees and make their working lives better. And it’s not just about making little tweaks here and there – instead, you need to really think about the whole business and what could be done even better and more humanely.
Focusing on making work better
ISS has been doing various AI machine-learning projects for many years, but they were still individual solutions. The take-off of generative AI marked a bigger change and ISS really started to look at what this could mean for their business.
One insight that emerged from this process is that you don't have to think about technology anymore – there are so many solutions coming up all the time. What’s more important is to make sure everyone in the organization stays on board with the changes.
Secondly, it’s very important to have a lot of people involved in this process. It shouldn’t be the IT department alone coming up with ideas. At ISS for example, people from the business side are a key part of the process.
Thirdly, it’s good to consider potential AI tools from multiple angles. At ISS they divided the process of exploring AI into three working groups. The first working group looked at education and communication, the second working group looked at technology, and the third working group focused on business benefits. In this way, they’ve been able to find solutions that can improve their employees' work lives.
Spread the word about AI
When it came time to explain the changes and the new ways to use AI, ISS used several tools. The process started with talks designed to raise awareness. These received a lot of responses and showed that many people were already thinking about AI.
The company also held workshops and has now created a technology community which is available online internally. This allows people who are excited about the topic to communicate and collaborate.
ISS is also creating presentations and trainings about this topic for those who don’t want to take part in the community. Demos are another way to showcase the benefits of new AI solutions for daily work and get people excited about the potential of AI. The goal is to offer multiple ways to get information and contribute to reaching the widest audience possible.
For more information reach out to Henna Niiranen, Business Director, at henna.niiranen@vincit.com !
Watch the discussion below or tune in on Spotify! 🎙️
