Managing Information Services: Is Your Team Truly Using AI Effectively?

Most companies are now switching to tools with AI features. Oftentimes, this comes with great expectations that these tools, such as Microsoft Copilot, will increase speed of work completion, decrease manual operations, and optimize efficiency in day-to-day tasks. All of these are the promised benefits as explained by corporate IT leaders, especially during rollout and marketing. Because of this, teams are motivated to relearn the system and look into utilizing these features. However, for the end users and those who are managing information services, one question still stands – is it effectively used by employees?  

Managing Information Services: Is Your Team Truly Using AI Effectively?

In managing information services, one thing is commonly overlooked. That is the fact that Installation is easier to measure than adoption. This is because a tool might be on the desktops of every computer but will never be used. Most of the time, company leaders often assume that because of the tools they procure, it automatically reduces workload and results in happy staff. In truth, however, at the ground level, nothing has changed, or in some instances, the new tool becomes a burden and causes end users to be at a loss on how to incorporate AI tools in their tasks. This not only renders the tool useless but also gains the ire of the employees for being an expensive and wasteful application to navigate. Because of this, Microsoft is not looking into addressing this issue.  

Understanding Copilot Usage Over Assumptions in Managing Information Services 

Benchmarks within Viva Insights, a new feature from Microsoft, is a tool that assists organizations in getting to know the usage of Copilot in teams. It displays actual usage trends instead of predicting behavior or outcomes that is commonly seen during roll out and marketing. Benchmarks show the number of employees who actively use Copilot along with their most used Microsoft apps. Additionally, it also displays how often each staff visit a particular tool or application. This information provides leaders with a better understanding of engagement and how their teams work. More importantly, according to experts in managing information services, it removes speculation. Business owners or executives no longer have to ask whether Copilot and other apps effectively assist in day-to-day work.  

Measuring Your AI Progress Against Others 

Benchmarks in Viva Insights are more than internal reporting. It also enables them to compare themselves to other organizations. This includes companies of the same size as well as industry and geographic location. According to professionals in managing information services, these insights provide the answer to the essential question of whether you are ahead or behind in adopting AI in business within the industry or region. With this data, it enables leaders to quickly change strategies and transform the use of AI into a business metric. And because the report shows the strong and weak aspects, it also indicates where improvement is required.  

Addressing Privacy and Data Concerns 

Although comparison of data is a valid point, employees, on the other hand, fear surveillance, or invasion. As such, Microsoft ensures that any external data is anonymized and aggregated. These mathematical models safeguard personal and business identities and therefore do not expose personal behavior. It simply aims to provide data for intelligent decisions without compromising privacy.  

Why Benchmarking Matters in Managing Information Services 

Today, most platforms have AI. However, there is very little to no scaling is done, which means nothing is tested and very few are fully implemented. Therefore, whenever one adopts an AI system, it still goes back to testing and training. Having Benchmarks means one can now determine points of slow adoption. With this information, business leaders can identify struggling teams, and appropriate responses can be provided through data-backed training and support which is a prime example of turning data into action. 

Supporting Teams Without Creating Pressure 

As they say, change is always hard in the beginning and messy in the middle. This is because new things push people and systems to unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations. In the case of tracking AI use, the fear of being watched is also an issue. However, AI and Benchmarks are not devices of punishment but rather of data that fuels development, empowerment, and optimization.  

Is your business looking into jumping towards the AI trend? EB Solution now has AI business solutions for every business needs. 

Talk to us about it today!