🧰 Humans vs AI: The Ultimate Corporate Guide

👉 9 steps to decide whether to retrain or replace

Summary: This week, I'm providing a complete 9-step guide for companies to use when deciding whether or not to use AI and a mathematical formula to measure the financial bottom line against the human bottom line.

Lately, I have been writing about when to use AI (and when not to). I created a guide for a personal AI-work balance, and then last week, I began the discussion on companies using AI not only ethically but intelligently.

Any attempt to create a corporate guide on AI has to start with what I call an intention statement, which you can read about here. This week, I am walking through the factors a company must consider when creating an SOP for employing AI.

Battling Bottom Lines

Companies have different stakeholders vested in performance: the owners or C-suite officers, employees, customers, business partners, and, if publicly traded, stockholders. So, while we often think of the bottom line as strictly financial, there is a human bottom line, too.

This human bottom line is vital for measuring success beyond profits: public image, reputation and trust, regulatory compliance, sustainability and social responsibility, talent retention, morale, and risk management.

So, when evaluating the use of AI, companies should measure not just the cost savings or efficiency gains but its positive impact on employee satisfaction, job retention, and workforce well-being. Customer perception is also vital. Human metrics must be factored into AI-driven initiatives.

Many companies struggle to balance the two bottom lines, so I have created a mathematical formula to help guide you. (Step #7 in the corporate guide below)

Once the decision is made to use AI, this black-and-white formula can help weigh the human bottom line against the financial bottom line and give corporations a firm number of when to replace vs. retrain the human elements.

Now, let’s get to the corporate manual and see how this formula works.