AI and Intranets: Navigating the Future of Digital Workplaces
As we reflect on the strides made in 2023 and look towards 2024, a pressing topic for teams responsible for Digital Workplaces, employee experiences, and intranets is understanding how AI can be an ally. Amidst this, there’s a buzz about bots becoming the new default interface, potentially overshadowing all others.
In this piece, we aim for clarity: on one side, the time-tested intranets, and on the other, AI-boosted bots. Who will take the lead in 2024 and beyond?
Intranets Through the Years
Traditionally, intranets have been the go-to for news, key documents, corporate directories, and application access. They’re crucial for onboarding new employees, navigating employee experiences, enforcing HR policies, and fostering corporate culture.
However, user adoption has been an ongoing issue. Some find intranets outdated, unattractive, and out of sync with current visual and interaction standards.
Bots and Generative AI:
The Game Changers The scenario changed post-2023. Before, enterprise bots were often gimmicky and underperforming, limited by a narrow set of commands and a steep learning curve for both employees and IT departments. But then came 2023 and ChatGPT, introducing everyone to generative AI, prompting many to experiment with conversational interfaces.
Today’s generative AI and indexing technologies, like Microsoft Azure, simplify deploying bots tailored to a company’s data and idiosyncrasies.
For instance, an HR bot trained on company policies can answer queries about travel expenses, leave, payroll, and bonuses based on the HR documents it has been fed. A department-specific bot can assist with product features, pricing, contractual terms, and discussions pertinent to sales and marketing teams.
With such ease and fluid interactions, do bots threaten to make corporate intranets obsolete?
The Vision of an Augmented Digital Workplace
At Powell Software, we believe in complementarity. Just as corporate social networks and Microsoft Teams didn’t replace but rather enhanced intranets, bots serve as an additional interface that amplifies the impact of intranets and addresses employee grievances.
An intranet is primarily governed by dedicated teams (Communications, HR, Operations), ensuring the reliability of documents and hierarchical information flow, enriched with a rich interface (text, video, images). Yet, information can become buried, and employees might not have the time or inclination to delve into a search bar to find and read policies relevant to their immediate questions.
An AI-boosted bot, on the other hand, provides a powerful interface that can interact in natural language, utilizing backend search and indexing tools to retrieve and rephrase relevant information. However, a bot can be intimidating, requiring a friendly “gateway” to initiate interaction, and employees need assurance about the source’s credibility.
Therefore, a bot integrated within an intranet that answers questions based on internally posted documents could be ideal, especially if it’s also readily accessible within Teams or a dedicated mobile app for field workers.
This is the augmented digital workplace vision we’re developing at Powell Software, harnessing the best of Microsoft 365 and Azure OpenAI technologies.
Bots and Intranets: Harmonizing the Future of Employee Engagement at Powell Software
The year 2024 promises to be thrilling as the potential glimpsed in 2023 solidifies into numerous projects.
At Powell Software, our commitment is to optimize knowledge management, employee experience, and team engagement within an AI and bot-augmented intranet.
Our prediction: Bots and Intranets will collaborate harmoniously to benefit employees.
Learn more about our vision of the augmented digital workplace.
Discover more about Powell Buddy.