It feels like the push towards digital transformation that came about at around the time of the pandemic has only just finished, yet there’s now another surge of change on the menu for Irish businesses.
Between the influence of artificial intelligence (AI), multiple waves of regulation and ongoing talent pressures, reinvention is once again the name of the game. This year will reward the businesses that get active with transformation, going from a trot to a gallop in their efforts to improve.
Inspiring as that sounds, it comes with challenges. Capacity issues around energy, transport and housing have both direct and indirect impacts on a company’s effort to evolve. There’s also the need to be ready to run with AI, which means having all ducks in a row regarding governance and compliance while making sure the data quality is fit for purpose.
More companies are moving from simply experimenting with AI tools towards redesigning how they work in a business. This immediately puts pressure at board level to ensure that the moves being made have definable metrics to prove the investment is sound while also maintaining compliance requirements.
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In Ireland, the level of adoption will be worth monitoring. Plenty of businesses expect to make productivity gains as a result of AI but the approach is far from uniform across industry here. Those that want to dive in will need to ensure they have their staff buying into the plan.
“To truly unlock AI’s potential, organisations need to move beyond pilots and process improvements, and most importantly, invest in upskilling all of their people,” Laoise Mullane, director and AI adoption lead at PwC, told The Irish Times in December.
Considering the heavy carbon usage of AI platforms at present, it’s rather odd that the other big theme in the year ahead will be sustainability. This is the year where pressure on businesses to show practical and clear improvements ramps up.
Sustainability is shifting from a nice bit of corporate and social responsibility action into being something that is expected to be embedded in all business processes. With ESG targets being set, being able to show with data that your business is becoming more sustainable is now a necessity.
Both of these factors are going to affect the workforce – but potentially in a positive way. As AI literacy becomes more commonplace, so too does the ability of workers to find ways to use it as a team-mate of sorts with which to address challenges.
Considering the challenges Irish companies have in filling roles at present, improving productivity from existing staff is vital and AI can help a great deal in that.
At the same time, the drive towards sustainability may get more businesses to reconsider their approach to hybrid work. Back-to-office mandates haven’t gone over well with a great deal of the workforce and using hybrid as a way to improve ESG performance by a business may be a win-win for all involved.
All of these influences point to a need for many companies to reinvent their very business models in the year to come. Change is afoot and technology is a root cause.
Media and marketing companies are already having an interesting time, to put it politely, with generative AI. Aside from the intellectual property (IP) debates this brings, there’s also the matter of public trust.
The less controversial aspects of AI and automation will, however, clearly impact the financial sector, with potential to improve overall forecasting models.
In truth, there are few if any sectors where AI and related technologies won’t cause some changes in how business is conducted in the year to come.
The key thing to bear in mind is that while 2024 and 2025 were years of experimentation, 2026 is the one where we witness the reality of this transformation. It will go right for some, it will go wrong for others; a great deal of how it goes comes down to preparation and performance.
Those that come out on top, while also ensuring they improve on the sustainability front, will inevitably be those that win over the trust of their staff. The workforce is the engine that drives a successful transformation. Without its support, businesses will be left to rue their mistakes.
