AI needs people as much as people need AI

A view of the Australian market 

PwC was recently kind enough to invite me to its analyst summit in Sydney. We’re not an analyst company in the conventional sense—our focus is on understanding how client needs will evolve and what that will mean for professional services firms—but events such as these are an invaluable opportunity to understand how the way clients and firms work together is evolving. And the lesson from Sydney was that every client project that was discussed had a significant AI-related component to it.  

In this respect, PwC’s clients appear to be at the more advanced end of AI adoption. Our most recent data shows that organisations’ attitudes to this technology, having crashed and burned after their initial attempts to make use of generative AI, are now slowly but steadily improving. Although the percentage of organisations that describe themselves as widely deploying this technology has risen only slightly, there’s been a jump in those who say they’re eager to use it.

But if you’d had gone to these sessions expecting to learn more about the technology clients are using, you’d have been disappointed, because what they mostly talked about was people: 

• The value of having non-technology people working on AI-related projects, especially those with deep experience of the business and industry, so that AI can be directed to areas where the strategic benefit will be greatest. 
• The need to consider how customers will experience an AI-enabled environment—because while AI may simplify processes and cut costs, these benefits can’t be at the expense of the quality of the interaction.
• The importance of having clear common goals, for example, around what the tech will do and what the people will do. 

The importance of “good counsels” 

You could argue that none of this is very different from a non-AI project: Technology, given free rein, always runs riot. But I think the voice of users is harder to hear where AI is concerned and that creates a risk that the enthusiasm to innovate with new technology will take precedence over meaningful business outcomes. 

Where the cloud took local applications and put them, literally and metaphorically, out of reach of the humans who used them, AI will make our relationship with technology even more remote, squeezing out the opportunity for small-scale tweaks that drive personal productivity and job satisfaction.  

More than 500 years ago, Machiavelli wrote that, “good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels”. He was arguing that leaders need to be smart, because if they aren’t, they can’t make use of the advice they’re given however good that advice is. It’s always struck me that this is as true in consulting as it is in statecraft. Consultants need smart clients if they are to do good work. Similarly, AI needs people to be smart for it to be smart, as my time in Sydney amply demonstrated. 

So what? 

AI won’t implement itself, at least not in any way that drives growth and productivity. Clients need to be clear about why they want to use this technology, and consultants need to demonstrate, through case studies and hard evidence, how they can help. 

What can firms do next?  

Source helps leading professional services firms understand how the growing influence of AI and other important trends are reshaping the industry. We look at what clients want from AI services, market-sizing implications, and what’s next for firms. To find out more about our expert-led briefings on the latest developments, get in touch.