By Sascha Donner, CIPO of EVANA AG
Artificial intelligence has become one of the cornerstone technologies driving the digital revolution. Solutions based on automation and machine learning are now being used or developed in almost all areas of the economy. And why not? After all, there are repetitive processes everywhere, some of them are highly inefficient and only tie up important human resources. It would be a pity not to exploit the potential for digitalisation in these areas.
However, at EVANA we are occasionally confronted with an accusation that I simply cannot ignore. In some instances, our EVANA AI has even been called a threat to jobs in the real estate industry. But this is exactly the opposite of what artificial intelligence actually does. Intelligent algorithms are not designed to replace humans. They are designed solely to improve the work that humans do.
When we look at how the new technology is used in practice, it’s clear that AI is not disruptive, but cooperative. For example, our EVANA AI extracts information from real estate industry documents and prepares them for downstream processing. Naturally, implementing the technology does have an impact on work processes for many employees, which is why we offer a range of training courses for our customers during the AI onboarding process to explain our system. During these onboarding processes, however, I have never had a single person come up to me and complain that their work has been completely taken over by our AI. Of course not. The classification and extraction of information was and is, after all, nothing more than the grunt work our customers have always had to invest precious manhours in. And now EVANA AI is here to alleviate employees from this tedious work. After all, the value is not only in the information itself, but in the insights it generates. And capitalising on these insights requires not only raw data but also human intuition, which cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence.
Automation means saving time and increasing efficiency, not disruption. Of course, some employees might worry that their jobs are at risk. But their concerns are unfounded. Nevertheless, it’s important to take employees’ anxieties seriously, and it is our job to carefully and sensitively address their concerns. Otherwise, the digital transformation will never live up to its full potential.