They have names, faces and e -mail addresses, but the five new colleagues of the Royal Unibrew van Denmark only exist in the virtual empire, which costs the brewer as a milestone to unleash the full potential of his staff.
“What we are good at as people is our creativity, our empathy, our knowledge of our customers,” marketing director Michala Svane told AFP.
SVANE explained that working with their digital colleagues, their human employees “get help for more routine-based work and find information”.
With the help of the Danish business distribution piece AI, she has enriched her team with five AI “colleagues”: brand specialist Kondikaai, market analyst Athena, Prometheus, who collects all sales data, Moller, Moller, a sommelier, a sommelier, a sommelier and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist. And trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist and trade specialist.
Initially, the assistants operated without names, but the five “colleagues” now all have a background story, can change outfits and communicate with other employees daily.
The company has taken photos of the “colleagues” – three men and two women, all attractive and fit – and human employees communicate with them via chats and e -mails.
“When we placed a photo on the AI agent, the use and the engagement went on four,” said Svane.
According to Svane, she has not felt fear of human staff to accept their virtual colleagues.
Jan Damsgaard, a professor who specializes in digital transformations at the Copenhagen Business School, explained that AI employees were often designed as “personas” for a better user experience for those who communicate with them.
“They are made to attend special problems,” Damsgaard told AFP.
At Royal Unibrew, the second largest brewer of Denmark, Karin Jorgensen, who is responsible for data collection and analysis and daily with Athena, her “sparring partner”.
She is currently interested in the non-alcoholic beer market and talks them through the Instant Messaging service teams that Athena guides her through already completed reports and an overview of the market.
“In the past, many e -mails came in. And we had to look up old reports and connect many things, etc. We have certainly moved to more agility, more speed,” Jorgens told AFP.
Another advantage, she said, is that analysis and collection information can be kept in-house.
“We get a lot more value and get much more effective while we work,” said the analyst.
Jorgensen also expects further developments, such as Athena that can participate in meetings.
Although this new relationship can make employees more productive, they must be aware that they retain their critical thinking skills, one of the managers Lise Knuppert Hordam warned.
“You have to be critical about everything that comes from Kondikai because he is a machine,” she said.
“What he says is based on all the data we have given him. So it is valid what he says, but it needs a human touch and creative thinking,” she said.
The development of these new tools, or 'colleagues', is not only a technological performance for Michala SVane, but it also lays the foundation for a hybrid team of people and AI colleagues that work together effortlessly.
But every new technology also entails risk, according to Damsgaard.
What raises questions in this case are the interactions between employees and their AI colleagues: what happens if your close colleague is an AI employee and not a real person? What do you do if a human colleague is contrary to an AI employee?
“It is something we know little about,” the researcher said, adding that he hoped that such questions will be answered as the technology is developed.
