A strategy is a plan of action intended for a specific goal or result, and business leaders know how vital it is to have one. They know, too, that strategizing means being able to adapt to change (or changes), such as technological innovations. Case in point: nowadays, a good number of businesses have started to integrate artificial intelligence (or AI) and automation into their strategies—and even in their day-to-day activities.
The best business strategy for a secure future is not the one that forces companies to choose between technology and people–it’s the one that combines automation with human creativity. This strategy allows businesses to manage challenging situations, explore and benefit from new opportunities, and stay one step ahead of the competition.
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Automation + Human Ability
Yes, automation helps improve efficiency in significant measures. Aside from making processes faster, it also minimizes human or manual error and effectively cuts down repetitive tasks. There’s no need to deal with multiple processes or tools because everything is automated. Instead of humans handling customer inquiries, now there are chatbots made specifically for such a task. Additionally, data analysis, insight generation, and discovering trends and patterns are now AI-driven.
However, even a highly advanced technology like automation has limits. As such, there are some aspects that it cannot provide—specifically, the need to understand emotions. For example, a customer calls and receives solutions or set instructions from a chatbot, if the solution doesn’t work and the customer rants because of frustration, they won’t get any reassuring reply from the bot. Why? Because chatbots have no emotions—they cannot empathize with the customers they provide service to.
Algorithms work the same way; they can provide businesses with the best or ideal path according to certain patterns, but that’s the farthest they can go. Unlike humans, who can get their creative juices flowing and come up with new strategies, algorithms are stuck with what they’re fed.
There is a clear cut solution for this: combining automation and human creativity.
Human Creativity & Its Power
Good plans and strategies help businesses thrive and survive, but it is creativity that keeps them apart from the rest of the pack. Automation simplifies and streamlined processes and operations but it is the humans—people, who formulate the strategies and techniques, the stories and ideas. Human creativity transforms raw data into useful information.
- Humans can connect ideas and understand relationships (even between different concepts). For example: a person can connect a popular song with a marketing event, such as an information caravan or a product launching.
- Humans can feel what their customers feel—they empathize with others. They can imagine themselves in the shoes of their customers and draw insights from their observations. They also know how to draw emotional feedback from customers, such as when watching a dramatic advertisement. Humans can inspire customers or make them cry or laugh.
- Humans are capable of visualizing future possibilities—things or incidents that have not happened yet or those that they haven’t experienced yet. They need to only think of the question “what if?” and they’ll be able to come up with unique creative strategies, plans, services, or product designs.
So if businesses rely solely on automation, they can be efficient but they won’t stand out. Once they combine it with human creativity, their strategies and processes become more interesting and inspiring—transforming plans to action becomes easier.
When Humans and Automation Work Together
Combining human creativity and automation allows businesses to benefit from the strengths of both elements, so they get to enjoy the full potential. Below are simple examples of how the two work together:
- Automation provides businesses with highlight patterns and tons of market data in the most efficient way possible. However, these are all numbers, so they don’t have the strategies that businesses need. This is where humans come in—they can read, analyze, and interpret the data and identify the most important insights.
- When customers access their favorite eCommerce platform, they’ll find product suggestions that are based on their preferences. Although AI is the one that suggests, the human marketing team is the one that comes up with the branding and identity, which gives the products credibility and meaning.
- While an automated system allows the uninterrupted, seamless flow of supply chains, human judgment is needed to ensure that wise and creative decisions are possible even when problems set in.
In all the abovementioned examples, human action is present. Human action completes the process. It adds “form” by way of injecting meaning, empathy, and creativity. As a result, businesses can produce innovative, efficient, and effective strategies.
The Risks and Challenges
Every good thing comes with risks and challenges and here are the most common ones for businesses that combine human creativity with automation:
- Businesses can rely too much on automation and when this happens, there is the danger of losing the human element—emotions. So when a customer communicates with a chatbot, they’ll get scripted, robotic replies that will make them feel unimportant.
- When businesses rely too much on humans, they can become slow, inefficient, and susceptible to mistakes. This will make it difficult for them to stay ahead of the competition.
- Customers may raise concerns about how algorithms work and how data is filtered when deciding on vital matters, such as hiring decisions and loan approvals. Some customers may question the fairness and transparency of the automation process:
Keeping these things in mind, business leaders should ensure that there is a clear balance when blending human creativity with automation. Over-relying on automation has an impersonal, robotic effect, while over-relying on humans can affect the efficiency and performance of a business. Machines should be considered as tools for improving human potential, not as a replacement.
Some Future-Ready Strategies
- Businesses should invest not only in tools but in their employees as well. There should be training and other opportunities for learning where employees are taught how to maximize the full potential of the tools.
- A regular training program that’s focused on helping employees learn the basics of collaboration is essential. A good example would be teaching marketing teams how to understand and analyze AI insights and then use these to come up with more effective campaigns. This way, they won’t have to worry about being replaced.
- Experimentation and innovation should be made a priority so marketing teams can freely explore automation, through the use of AI tools for ideation. Exploring different types of AI agents can be especially worthwhile, as each offers unique insights and capabilities to inspire new strategies. Enhancing and transforming the idea into impactful, unique, and creative actions is what humans will bring to the table.
- For businesses that are blending human creativity and automation for the first time, take things slowly. Start with small and simple projects then gradually evolve into bigger strategies. A popular option for this is to use AI tools for gathering customer insights.
For businesses to stay on track, thrive, survive, and succeed, the best thing to do is to use automation as a collaborative tool and not consider it a threat.
Conclusion
Instead of looking at automation as a threat, businesses should consider it as a willing partner in the quest for success. Instead of starting a showdown between machines and human creativity, businesses should practice collaboration. Humans and machines can co-exist in the business world.
Automation, like other technologies, will continue to improve and evolve. Human creativity, vision, and empathy will remain strong elements that businesses need to stand out. Balancing these two elements will help businesses thrive, survive, and succeed.
The bottom line: human creativity + automation is more than just strategy; it is success today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.