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To my mind, there is no bigger discussion than how companies are tackling the enormous challenge of integrating Human & Artificial Intelligence in order to build a sustainable organisation for the digital economy. So it was my great pleasure to MC a recent HR Summit held jointly by the NSW Business Chamber and S P Jain School Of Global Management which explored this very topic.  We assembled first class speakers and panellists for a 360 degree view across the SI, Vendor, Management Consulting, BPO and end-user landscapes to look under the covers beyond the rhetoric and dissect this complex topic. I thought I’d summarise the salient points that were well received by a healthy and engaged audience:

1st Keynote Address:  – Deepak Nangia, Corporate VP & Chief Customer Officer, Capgemini Asia Pacific & Middle East

Deepak defined “Industry 4.0” at a high level before providing some deeper analysis around the changing landscape of the Top Market Cap companies globally and locally from 1990 to the present. Australia is looking quite pedestrian with Banks and Resource companies still dominating our stock exchange by stark contrast to the US stock exchanges which read as the “who’s who” of the tech sector.  He then continued to detail the winners and losers from the shift in employment by sector from 2011 to 2017 – Jobs in Arts & Recreation Services and Health Care & Social Assistance up 63.82% and 42.51% respectively whilst Wholesale Trade & Manufacturing down 6.71% and 1.92% respectively were notable.

Deepak then critiqued the “hot” technologies that are the driving forces behind this Fourth Industrial Revolution: AI, NLP, The Rise Of The Drone; 3D Printing, Deep Learning; Gene Editing and much more…then itemising some technology tipping points expected to occur by 2025 including:  

• 10% of people wearing clothes connected to the internet
• The first 3D-printed car in production
• Driverless cars equaling 10% of all cars on US roads
• The first transplant of 3D-printed liver
• Over 50% of internet traffic to homes for appliances and devices
• The first city with more than 50,000 people and no traffic lights
• The first AI machine on corporate board of directors (can’t wait to see that!)

Finally, Deepak profiled Society 5.0 a.k.a. “The Super Smart Society”:

• Robots administering preventive examinations to significantly extend life expectancy
• Automation of the agricultural industry increasing food production and reducing waste
• Optimal value chains and energy diversification via automatic robotic production

We then saw the 1st Panel discussion tackling the Technology dimension of Industry 4.0 with Deepak joining the following experts: Andy Bateman, National Lead Partner, Innovation Strategy, Deloitte / Nick Dunford, CEO at CoVentured / Jeff Frazer, Head Robotic, Intelligent Process Automation Consulting, Cognizant.

Andy was the optimist in the room, happily dismissing the view that significant automation-driven job losses were on the horizon. His mantra is that it’s just that the nature of work, the worker and the workplace are all changing and that the binary view of job losses to machines is one-dimensional. It’s the augmentation and design of new work that is the fascinating part…..

Nick approached innovation with a different emphasis positing the view that cutting-edge innovation for large corporate entities should be outsourced. The best innovators are the individuals locked in/incentivised by LTIs and RSUs, often as part of start-ups. In-house innovation could never compete with this. For the record, I agree wholeheartedly with this as I witness top innovation talent headed inevitably for Silicon Valley/IPO territory as part of my daily diet!

Jeff spoke authoritatively about the AI-enabled Robotics road train about to hit us all.  With his Fortune 500 Robotics implementation experience from the more mature markets of North America, he was adamant that automation is not a fad but a reality of life and we must prepare for what is coming.  

This brought us to the second stream of the Summit focusing on PEOPLE and how they were being impacted by this raft of digital technologies just examined.

2nd Keynote address: – Brady Jacobsen, Head of Operations, Velocity Frequent Flyer, Virgin Australia Group

Brady’s digital transformation remits sit at the very junction of human and artificial intelligence and he shared the complexities and nuances of digital transformation from his experiences at Australia Post, NBN, Telstra and, currently, Virgin Australia. His use of Facebook and other social media in times of crisis (such as floods) evidenced the power of digital technologies to bring people together, quickly, protecting the Enterprise, the Customer and the Shareholder in the process. 

The 2nd panel discussion tackling the people dimension in this People v’s/with Technology debate then assembled which included Mathew Scott, HR Director, American Express / Julie Hyam Elliott, Former CEO, Bank Of Sydney and now Director, Chair Audit and Risk Committee, Member Remuneration Committee at Australian Invoice Finance / Vanessa Gavan, Founder & Managing Director, Maximus International.

Matthew detailed some of the key HR solutions/strategies that are currently available to practitioners and the need/opportunity for the HR profession to reinvent itself and play a more meaningful and quantifiable role on the org. chart.  HR practitioners need to firstly understand Digital to be able to respond to it! Focus on the core human attributes that robots can’t replace such as empathy and the ethics of decision-making and develop people along those lines.  Gender diversity was an ongoing challenge given the male domination of STEM qualifications/skills.

Julie shared some insights into discussions that are taking place on the several Audit & Risk Committees she either attends or Chairs.  Cyber security is a real issue and the digitisation of everything opens up threats at every turn. Balancing the implementation of RPA/AI technology without intruding on employee privacy is a delicate balancing act and, in some respects, privacy as we knew it will be fundamentally challenged going forward. Existing benchmarks and constitutional frameworks will need to be revisited. (Julie had just hopped off the red-eye special from Perth to be with us so extra special thanks Julie for making the effort).

Vanessa has spent the past 18 years transforming a range of leading international organisations and the leaders within them and she noted the challenges of re-educating Baby boomer/Gen-X leaders required to provide digital leadership to digital native employees on the rise! She takes these leaders on field trips to Israel and Silicon Valley to experience first-hand the dynamics at play. Leadership profiles are changing in response to the digitisation of the Enterprise so core attributes now required to provide relevant and authentic leadership included: agility, adaptability, foresight, fast-learning, resilience and curiosity.

I could not resist closing the Summit with a quote from Gary Kasparov, the World Chess Champion famously defeated by a computer in 1997: “We’re not being replaced by AI. We’re being promoted! Please stop fretting: Technology is the reason most of us are alive to complain about technology! Qualing about awesome robots is like refusing to get into a lift without an operator!”

Many thanks to Amanda Currie, Event Producer with the NSW Business Chamber and John Miles, CEO of S P Jain School Of Global Management for coordinating this Summit.