Learning Together: The Evolution of GenAI in Organizational Q&A

When I started a new job during the pandemic in June 2020, I faced challenges with proprietary software. There was no online help available, so my options were limited: ask via email or schedule meetings. For a newcomer, questions are endless. And if you’re a senior employee, you are expected to know everything … well almost.

Challenges of the Remote Work Era

Work Challenges

This personal experience is not unique. Across the globe, employees faced similar challenges. In 2022, after years of remote work, the challenges persisted. I remember a colleague navigating the office corridors trying to find someone who could answer a client’s question.

On another occasion, our DevOps team spent hours troubleshooting a server issue, only to find out later that another team had recently fixed the same issue.

While these challenges were evident, they weren’t just limited to work aspects; the emotional implications of remote work were profound.

Emotional Challenges

Professor Fuschia Sirois from Durham University is an expert on procrastination. She thinks that one source of workplace depression during the pandemic was the lack of instant in-person advice. (Podcast – Professor Fuschia M. Sirois)

When everyone is remote you can’t reach out the same way. You can get an online call or email but it’s a lot harder to get that instant advice. For an employee working remotely, unclear tasks lead to increased uncertainty. You might be missing the context or an important piece of information to get that clarity. Uncertainty leads to procrastination, and it relates to anxiety and depression. That can cause serious health-related problems.

Q&A platforms could alleviate these issues. Whether it’s a question on company policies, a project’s history, or seeking clarity on a task in hand.

Knowledge Management in Organizations

Navigating Knowledge Management is a universal challenge in Large Enterprises

• A lot of information is lost once the project or sprint is over.
• Information lives in digital repositories – a mix of emails, shared drives, and endless chat threads.
• Knowledge is scattered and untraceable in wikis, JIRA, Yammer, and other forums.
• Silos create barriers, often leaving employees unaware of how other teams use these platforms.
• You can’t reach your colleagues; face-to-face meetings are rare in the hybrid work environment.

The Potential of GenAI in Q&A

With the emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) like ChatGPT, the traditional Q&A platform will evolve. The traditional Q&A platform will be equipped with GenAI and will provide collaboration with human experts.

GenAI’s Collaborative Approach to Q&A

The GenAI can quickly generate answers by leveraging vast datasets and helping in speeding up the Q&A process. GenAI should not be seen only as an answer-generating machine, it can be used as a collaborative tool. When an employee poses a question, GenAI can provide an answer. However, if GenAI recognizes a knowledge gap or uncertainty about a response, it can reach out to a human expert. This ensures that the AI continually learns and improves while keeping human expertise at the forefront.

Speed and efficiency: AI can rapidly answer frequently asked questions.

Continual learning: With AI sending alerts about gaps in its knowledge, the system can be constantly updated and ensure it remains relevant.

Identifying Experts: After learning some answers from experts. AI will quite accurately identify Subject Matter Experts.

Human Experts improving: The human experts also learn when they are nudged on their relevant topic. They can contribute, and they can enhance the answer as well. But if they are not aware of the topic they will learn from the answer. Also, they can dig deeper into the area of their interest further enhancing their knowledge.

In summary, while AI can address quantitative or straightforward questions found in data, humans are better suited to handle novel and nuanced queries that arise from personal experiences.

Personalization: Soon, GenAI Q&A platforms will be able to learn user behaviors and preferences over time, they could proactively offer insights and solutions even before a query is explicitly made.

In Conclusion: Balancing AI Efficiency with Human Expertise

Knowledge resides both in an organization’s digital realm and in its people’s minds. By merging these platforms, we can navigate and extract knowledge from digital repositories and learn from experts. Also transforming and training the AI model. We can benefit from AI, making it more efficient and correct. But we don’t lose the human touch and appreciate their presence.