How Robots Improve Information Transfer in the Workplace

Our team spent the past nine months collaborating with dozens of Microsoft 365 #Copilot customers to analyze the work habits of more than 6,000 employees -- one of the largest telemetry studies of its kind to date. We split employees into two groups: one with access to Copilot and the other without. And three major trends emerged.     1. AI is starting to liberate people from email. Overall, employees at a consumer goods company with access to Copilot spent 31% less time reading emails, a time savings of 50 minutes a week per user. At a telecommunications company, employees spent 23% less time, saving 40 minutes per week. 2. Meetings are becoming more about value creation. The workday is often a balancing act between crucial meetings and focused work. And with AI, some companies are reducing time spent in meetings, and others are making the time spent in meetings more valuable. People using AI at a consulting firm spent 16% less time in meetings. An energy company saw a 12% increase in the number of meetings being left early, suggesting that people may feel comfortable bowing out because they can use Copilot to get meeting notes, ask questions, and check on action items. 3. People are co-creating more with AI—and with one another.  Human-to-AI-to-human collaboration fosters better human-to-human collaboration, reducing the time it takes to get from good to great. One consumer goods company saw a 41% boost in the number of Word sessions, while at a law firm and a telecom company, Word document creation soared by 58% and 45%, respectively. Employees with access to Copilot at a financial services company co-edited 33% more documents than those without AI, and a consulting firm saw a similar effect.      Learn more in our latest #AI Data Drop here!

The future of work is here, and it’s a hybrid workforce of humans and trusted agents. Companies who are deploying AI agents to augment human employees are already seeing the limitless opportunities of digital labor. Take for example reMarkable, a company dedicated to bringing distraction-free digital writing to the world. reMarkable is growing at a rapid pace, and acquiring more customers than its human workforce can handle on their own. I sat down with Nico Cormier, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, to learn how Agentforce has eased their growing pains. reMarkable augmented their customer service reps with their first agent, “Mark”, who handles a large portion of incoming service requests and has even increased the company’s NPS score. After seeing Mark’s success, the company stood up its second agent, “Saga”, integrated into Slack, to enable more streamlined internal IT support for employees. With the help of Mark and Saga, reMarkable’s human employees can focus on higher-value, more strategic work, while digital labor takes care of routine and time-consuming tasks. The result? Increased efficiency, better customer satisfaction, and a more empowered workforce. With Agentforce, deeply integrated into Slack, companies like reMarkable are not just adding another tool to their arsenal; they’re creating a smarter, more intuitive way to work.

Loudness. Chaos. Disorganized communication left our blue-collar business a mess. I'm sure it's done the same to yours. I've always wanted to help blue-collar businesses with new technology. We tried something new with AI to make talking between workers clearer and smoother. That's why I appreciate Amy Blaschka's post on the importance of communication. We brought in a system that uses AI to help organize tasks and tell workers what needs to be done first. Before this, it was hard for everyone to keep up because of all the noise and confusion in our workspace. With our new system, workers get updates right on their devices. They're notified immediately about what's important and what to do next. As we people adapted, we made fewer mistakes. We got more work done. Everyone understood each other better. The process showed me that even hands-on jobs can get better with a bit of technology help. This experience showed me that AI can really make a difference in how we work every day. It's made things smoother and keeping everyone on the same page.

The recent working paper from Harvard Business School demonstrated that individuals working with AI matched the performance of traditional two-person teams. The research team performed experiment with 776 P&G professional across 4 business units suggesting AI is becoming a "cybernetic teammate" rather than just a tool, fundamentally changing how organizations might structure work and collaboration. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: • Individuals with AI performed as well as traditional two-person teams • AI-enabled teams showed highest performance (+39% improvement) • Tasks completed 16% faster with AI • Cross-functional barriers dissolved: Both R&D and Commercial staff produced more balanced solutions. Without AI, professionals tended to stay within their expertise domains • Surprisingly, AI users reported more positive emotional experiences The future of work isn't just about AI augmentation—it's about true human-AI collaboration reshaping how we structure teams and organizations. Paper link: https://lnkd.in/gxF42ran #AI #FutureOfWork #Innovation

AI is transforming industries—but for frontline workers, it needs to leave the desk and enter the field.    Unlike desk-based employees, technicians, factory workers, and logistics teams can’t rely on keyboards and screens. They need hands-free, real-time support to do their jobs efficiently.   That’s where #XR + #AI comes in. Smart glasses and wearable devices are accelerating knowledge transfer, streamlining complex tasks, and reducing training bottlenecks—all without taking workers away from the job.   In this new report, my BCG X colleagues Tibor Mérey and Kristi Woolsey detail how businesses can successfully scale this technology. Like I’ve said before, the #future is more like Marvel’s J.A.R.V.I.S and less like RP1. It’s not about replacing workers—it’s about empowering them: https://lnkd.in/eR6n5Crf   #AI #XR #FutureofWork #DigitalTransformation #emergingtech #AR #VR #XR #BCG #OnDeviceAI #tech #frontiertech #GenAI #workershortage #newreport

Most teams are underperforming. Not because of laziness. Not because of bad culture. But because the people are stuck doing work AI should be doing. Want better meetings? Want stronger collaboration? Want better performance? Then free your team from doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Here are 5 simple, powerful ways AI is already helping teams build better ⬇️ ↳ 1. Summarizing conversations and meetings Let AI generate transcripts, write summaries, and pull action items. Tools like Fireflies(dot)ai, Sembly, or Cluely let humans listen deeply instead of multitasking. 👉 Deep listening creates better decisions. ↳ 2. AI-powered dashboards and alerts Use AI to surface KPIs, anomalies, and early warning signals. When AI tells the team what’s changing, the team can focus on what to do about it. 👉 Conversations shift from data-gathering to decision-making. ↳ 3. Detecting tone and team sentiment AI can analyze Slack, Zoom, or email data to flag mood swings, overload, or risk of burnout. This gives managers a chance to step in before trust or morale break down. 👉 Tech reads the room, so humans can step up. ↳ 4. Automating low-EQ, repetitive tasks Inbox triage, calendar management, ticket routing, and basic reporting don’t need a human. AI frees up emotional bandwidth so people can do higher-order, higher-empathy work. 👉 Free your team from the robotic parts of their jobs. ↳ 5. Drafting the first version of everything Project plans, presentations, emails, proposals—let AI write the messy first version. Humans can then refine, adapt, and build something great together. 👉 Collaboration thrives when people start from something, not nothing. This isn’t about replacing people. It’s about amplifying them. AI isn’t just a productivity tool—it’s a team design tool. ✅ Start mapping tasks that are low EQ, high repetition, and ripe for automation ✅ Pick 1 AI tool to test across a core workflow next week ✅ Train your team to co-create with AI, not just delegate to it ♻️Repost & follow John Brewton for content that helps. ✅ Do. Fail. Learn. Grow. Win. ✅ Repeat. Forever. ⸻ 📬Subscribe to Operating by John Brewton for deep dives on the history and future of operating companies (🔗in profile).

In operations-heavy orgs, you don’t always realize how much time is spent just trying to see what’s going on. At European Air Transport (DHL), teams used to spend days — sometimes up to a week — pulling insights out of PDFs to build reports. By the time the data was ready, the moment to act had passed. Then they built AI agents in Dataiku. Now those same reports run in 30 minutes. That shift doesn’t just make the work faster (which it sure does), it makes the work better. People stop chasing data and start spotting real issues. They plan earlier. They respond same-day. They don’t wait around for a dashboard to load before making a call. It's a simple equation: When you free up time, ambition shows up. Here’s how they made it happen: https://lnkd.in/eGymeMzf