We’ve Had This Conversation Before

Every major technological shift arrives with predictions that work will never be the same again. There are concerns about jobs, debates about customer experience and questions about whether organisations are becoming less human. Generative AI has brought all of those discussions back into focus, creating a sense that businesses are entering completely uncharted territory.

However, Carolyn Jardmore, Managing Director of Cream Consulting, offered a great perspective during a recent discussion. While the technology itself may be new, many of the organisational conversations surrounding it are surprisingly familiar. Long before generative AI arrived, organisations were wrestling with similar questions as websites, self-service technology and chatbots became part of everyday customer interactions.

It raises an interesting thought. Is AI creating entirely new organisational challenges, or are we simply revisiting questions we’ve been asking for years?

Familiar Questions

Think back to the rise of digital customer channels. As organisations encouraged customers to use websites, self-service portals and chatbots, the same concerns surfaced time and again;

• Would customers still want to speak to people?
• Would technology make organisations feel less human?
• Would automation gradually make customer-facing roles less important?

At the time, those weren’t abstract debates. They shaped investment decisions, transformation programmes and customer service strategies across almost every industry.

The technology has changed. The questions have not.

What Changed?

Looking back, the outcome was more nuanced than many people expected.

Technology gradually absorbed much of the routine work. Customers no longer needed to contact an organisation to check a balance, update their details or track an order. Straightforward interactions became faster, simpler and increasingly self-service.

The work that remained, however, became more demanding. Instead of repetitive requests, people were dealing with unusual situations, vulnerable customers, complex decisions and conversations where empathy, judgement and context mattered far more than following a process. Human roles didn’t disappear. They evolved.

Perhaps that is the part of the story we forget.

The Same Pattern?

Today’s AI debate often centres on the tasks that might disappear. Organisations are exploring how AI can summarise meetings, draft documents, analyse information and automate repetitive work. Those opportunities are real, but they only tell part of the story. History suggests that whenever technology takes on routine tasks, the value of the remaining work changes. Communication, critical thinking, judgement and empathy don’t become less important. If anything, they become more valuable because they’re applied where technology reaches its limits.

That may be one reason so many organisations discover that AI adoption isn’t really about the technology. It’s about helping people adapt to new ways of working and redefining where human expertise adds the greatest value.

Looking Back To Move Forward

None of this suggests that generative AI is simply another chatbot. Its capabilities are different, and its long-term impact may prove far greater than previous waves of technological change.

But Carolyn’s point wasn’t that history repeats itself. It was that organisations have faced this kind of disruption before. They’ve had to rethink roles, adapt to changing customer expectations and work out how people and technology fit together.

Perhaps that’s why today’s AI debate feels so familiar. The technology may be new. The organisational questions aren’t.