AI has entered our work lives in transformational and disruptive ways. It's easy to focus on our concerns and fears about changes in the world around us, but we have been here before.
My career started with transformation in the early days of the internet. Then too, we had questions about the changes coming upon us. Businesses saw the promise of technology, and individuals saw it change how we work and what we did on a daily basis. In those days, it was someone’s job to remove staples from paperwork so it could be recorded to microfiche before the paperwork was filed for future access. Students poured through paper ‘card catalogs’ trying to find books which may or may not contain information that they were trying to locate.
Access to information was slow and labor-intensive, and became a driver to technology adoption. How to retrieve and use the information companies and institutions had stored on paper was a burning question. Sounds like the stone age compared to now, and it was.
The journey from those days has been a pattern of technology leaps forward followed by periods of adoption and transformation. The internet, smartphones, computers that don’t take up a building but are small enough to carry in a hand. Each phase has brought fear and opportunity in equal measure before it faded into its ubiquitous role in our lives.
I look back on those days as guidance on how to approach the present.
AI (Artificial Intelligence), the current entry into this pattern, brings both exciting opportunities as well as intense fear for people. It is changing how we work. Things will never be the same. We can only imagine in our dreams (or nightmares) what that is going to look like and feel like in years to come. So, let’s look back as we look forward, to reassure ourselves that change, while being uncomfortable, is also full of promise. While that change brings legitimate concerns, like potential job displacement or algorithmic bias, history shows us that we can adapt.
How can AI help you with your day-to-day role? Look for opportunities to make repetitive, slow, or labor-intensive tasks faster and more efficient. As in other transformational periods, let it transform your work and approach. Make it work for you, and you will quickly see the opportunities.
Appnovation developers use AI to quickly prototype ideas and test-drive solutions as we iterate and develop for our clients. AI can be a ‘rubber duck’ to partner with us in solving problems and bouncing ideas around with. We can use it to review our code, saving the time of other developers. Finding the answer to a unique question becomes more efficient than hundreds of internet searches would provide in the 'past’.
For example, in a recent project, I was torn between two approaches that offered similar benefits and effort. Spending time ‘in conversation’ with AI regarding my options and needs, I was able to choose the solution that also offered the most subtle or hidden benefits. The efficiency of identifying those less obvious considerations saved hours of research and meetings with other developers. The end product being more robust and adaptable with the same amount of development effort. Win Win.
Exploring a new technology becomes more streamlined with AI as a guide and helper, resulting in fewer wasted hours and earlier successes. For example, I recently had a developer ramp up on a technology stack that was new for them. They used AI as a personal trainer in their exploration. It provided ready answers for their questions and suggestions when they were grappling with structure and syntax. Within a matter of weeks—rather than the typical months this process often requires—their code contributions had become mature and well thought out. The AI-assisted approach allowed them to bypass many of the common stumbling blocks that typically slow down the learning curve.
At Appnovation we work with our clients to not only help them achieve operational efficiencies but to bring new thinking and approaches to their businesses. When adapting to new technologies the true success stories are not about saving time as much as they are about growing in new and unique ways. Ways that take businesses to the next level while remaining true to their brands and customers.
Digital technologies didn't just automate existing processes—they fundamentally reimagined them. Organizations that succeeded didn't merely digitize analog processes; they rethought their entire business models. Similarly, AI isn't just automating knowledge work; it's creating new possibilities for how we think, create, and solve problems. Ultimately, just as with the internet, AI's true power lies in its ability to inspire us to redefine what's possible.
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