While the world was riveted by the scandalous machinations of the OpenAI board-management shake-up last year, a quieter revolution was happening in management across Asia. The slow extinction of the traditional manager in companies where AI is transforming everything from business results to talent management requires new ways to lead. AI is not just coming for the low-level jobs; it’s coming for the people whose jobs it previously was to make the engine of work ‘work’.

Maybe it’s coming for your job too.

Diana Wu David is a past member of the AmCham Board of Governors

A short history of ChatGPT (because it only has a short history)

OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. By January 2023 it had gained 1 million users, becoming one of the most quickly adopted consumer technologies to date and accelerating the conversation about how work might change as a result.

It also confounded corporate users as many individuals started experimenting with Large Language Models (LLMs) via ChatGPT and popular visual counterparts like MidJourney and Dall-E, and using them through other intermediary applications (see this a16z report for an overview of how consumers are using LLMs).[1] This happened largely before corporations could figure out how to decide who would get to use the technology, how to onboard them and how to put up appropriate guardrails to protect data and privacy of proprietary information and customer data.  Some companies in Asia have created sandboxes for a chosen few, others set out broad guidelines within which all employees can experiment and still others, most notably the University of Hong Kong (HKU), initially banned generative AI altogether.

Since then, most businesses have been playing catch-up to gain a basic understanding of the impact of generative AI because it is moving and changing so quickly.

ONE: Rethink how you value skills

A big role of management is simply organizing how to get work done. The adoption of AI not only affects the work we do but also the way we do it. For example, Open AI predicts 80% of US workers will have work tasks affected by the introduction of Generative Pre-trained Transformers, or GPTs, a type of large language model. AI has the power to dramatically disrupt the way we allocate time and people in service of business results.

For example, with Asia’s lock on business process outsourcing, it has a unique opportunity to ladder up the value chain using generative AI. Many of these businesses are based on volumes of low-level operatives performing customer service and client interface roles. A study of customer service representatives by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Intstitute of Technology (MIT) in April of 2023 showed a potential 14% improvement in productivity for novice workers, less so for experienced workers. A key learning is that generative AI enhances value delivered by low level workers, like those in an outsourced call center, performing existing tasks.

In professional services, Boston Consulting Group’s Henderson Institute did a study across 750 BCG consultants worldwide to see how generative AI affected performance.[2] The random sample of consultants assigned to use GPT-4 for regular consulting tasks completed tasks 25% faster and with 40% higher quality. Interestingly, consultants who took the results and tried to improve upon them, fared worse. Those who attempted new and novel tasks with generative AI likewise didn’t see such a boost.

The takeaway for managers is twofold. First, know how and when to use generative AI and when other aspects of your toolkit are more relevant. Don’t add technology to overly complex processes that could instead be simplified. New opportunities that require complex thinking and judgment are best led by humans. Second, consider how to incentivize knowledge sharing and use from those with institutional knowledge and expertise. Can you free up time with AI and reallocate your best people to strategize and address the knotty problems you’ve never had time for?

TWO: Tech is now everyone’s job

Recent conversations I’ve had with people managers across Asia about AI sometimes yield a “that’s the Chief Technology Officer’s responsibility” response. There is the mistrust that comes from not understanding technology or feeling it is not part of your job. Today, understanding how technology can supercharge your results is everyone’s job.

Traditional businesses may feel that they are better placed to wait and see and there is understandable fear of loss of privacy, cybersecurity risks and loss of intellectual property. However, businesses who are ahead of the curve realize that there are different kinds of risk and that the risk of doing nothing is high vs empowering people to innovate. Future-forward companies like Hong Kong-based digital lender WeLab have applied AI to their operations since 2015. Faced with a huge spike in customer calls in the lead up to Chinese New Year WeLab launched an AI-powered chatbot that processed more than 80% of 70 million dialogues on the Mainland Chinese market, saving costs and allowing staff to go home for the holiday.  

Part of the reason managers in particular need to play catch up is that employees are already using generative AI, regardless of company policy and often in spite of it. A big trend of 2023 has been companies’ realization of “secret cyborgs” in their midst. These are employees who are using generative AI in your company without you knowing it or because the company has banned it. Ironically, there is greater advantage to employees if you don’t know as they can exponentially increase their output without having anyone know that they are working less than ever. This creates unnecessary risk in the business as you aren’t tracking it and you aren’t collectively learning from the experiments in place.

One of the issues we see in the current tech-enabled business transformation is senior leaders playing catch up to find the tech that can empower their workforce. How will you make sure it’s done for the best possible outcomes? Move those secret cyborgs over to become your elite corps of “modern centaurs”, the half human-half tech worker who intuitively understands what is possible to supercharge their own work.

Ask your workforce what life would be like if they were to become modern centaurs. Chances are they know what is available better than you do. A modern leader’s job is to put forward guidelines that can allow for innovation with proper guardrails to manage risk. You’ll be pleased to hear that generative AI can help you monitor that risk too. Ask it to look for holes in your strategy or accounts and see if there is anything you’ve overlooked.

THREE: Will AI eat your management role, too?

As a leader, your role is to define the mission, align resources to achieve it and communicate in a way that inspires and empowers people to do their best work. You make sure the best possible people come together to create the business results that roll up into value creation for the company, customers, shareholders and stakeholders.

But what happens to management when there are no people to manage?

In the first half of 2023, my company, Future Proof Lab, which helps companies capitalize on future trends, put together 20+ events and workshops. Our marketing manager hired people to film, edit videos, attend the sessions, write copy and post to social media. Ensuring each person knew where to show up, what to do and who to pass their work to was a full-time job.

When generative AI emerged on the scene earlier 2023 the company quickly automated much of this. Our video software now does a transcript and summary, opus.ai selects the best 30-second video clips, photos are generated from text and our library of videos, articles, books and other content can be remixed and repurposed into tailored programs for clients, bite-sized social media or training for future client needs. Size of team? Zero.

Today our manager has gone from managing people to managing people and technology and knowing when one, the other or a combination is the best ‘person’ for the job. In a matter of months, she has become skilled at understanding what technology is available, how best to implement it for the outcomes identified and when to add the human touch.

Even more exciting? What used to take three days, now takes a few hours. As Kai-Fu Lee, Chair and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and former head of AI at both Google and Microsoft explains, “AI will create efficient services that will give us back our most valuable resource — time”.

This is happening across the board in businesses small and large. Last year, Jardine Group’s internal HackAsia hackathon focused on AI and ChatGPT came up with hundreds of potential uses for generative AI and shortlisted projects measured against  criteria of “Innovativeness”, “Risk”, “Impact”, and “Readiness”. HSBC’s Hong Kong CEO has identified hundreds of use cases currently being vetted for a balance of customer value, security and investor safety.

The advent of generative AI is actually making the “do more with less” a reality. Many of our clients are preparing for a day when the organization chart is flatter as individual leaders can get more work done with fewer resources – less capex, fewer layers of technology and yes, fewer people per team. This changes the role of a manager to be more outcome-driven than ever before. It requires the usual management skills of understanding of what levers to pull to iterate and execute strategy and improving performance, coupled with an understanding where AI can supercharge results.

It also increases the value of vision, leadership and communication. A human in the loop ensures judgment (hopefully, good judgment) and humane ethics are top of mind for organizations as bias and reputation are key risk factors. As AI chatbot designer Jurgen Gravestein said in one of our Future Proof masterclasses, “GenAI is like an electric bike – it makes things go faster, should have a human driving and please wear a helmet for unforeseen curves”. Managers, like elite sports coaches, still have the possibility to get their players to do things that are statistically impossible.

What’s a manager to do?

With the hype surrounding generative AI, it’s important to remember people tend to overestimate the short-term effect of new technologies while underestimating the long-term effects. The workforce will evolve, and workers and managers will need to learn new skills related to AI and other new technologies. Managers need to get clear on the use cases they think are priorities for investment of time and resources, scan the horizon for new inputs and develop a process to test and iterate if they are to keep pace.

Evaluating what skills, knowledge and data you already have within the organization is a good place to start. Examples such as hackathons or special interest groups focused on generative AI help latent knowledge within the organization rise to the surface.

Having regular dialogue between departments and the Chief Technology Officer/Chief Information Officer around what data is being collected and how it might be used in the future is also an important initial review that can yield new insights around how to apply generative AI in low-stakes, high-reward ways. These can also surface some of the risks inherent in where data is housed, how it is used and by whom. The executives I spoke to who are sleeping well at night have put thought into identifying risks and streamlining communications around what guardrails and no-go zones can help protect their data and intellectual property.

Finally, take the long view. Establishing a process and framework for anticipating technological change that is accelerating with no end in sight is a long-term competitive advantage. Common foresight techniques like scenario planning, signal scouting and mapping secondary effects can help identify future trends and apply them strategically. Tomorrow’s leaders must embrace dynamic inputs and constantly reinvent themselves in an ever-changing world. They can combine the wisdom of the past with the innovation of the present, navigate uncertainties and become pioneers in a landscape that is perpetually in motion. 

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[1] Olivia Moore, “How Are Consumers Using Generative AI?”, posted September 13, 2023, a16z, Adreessen.Horowitz, https://a16z.com/how-are-consumers-using-generative-ai/

[2] Francois Candelon, Lisa Krayer, Saran Rajendran and David Zuluaga Martínez, Generative AI/Article : “How People Can Create – and Destroy – Value with Generative AI”, September 21, 2023, BCG Henderson Institute, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2023/how-people-create-and-destroy-value-with-gen-ai?