Help employees adopt to software changes using AI

Many employees of large organizations might find this scenario familiar. Whether working from home or arriving in the office on a Monday morning, they log on as usual to their workstation to commence the day’s tasks. But something’s different. The first screen they see after the log-on no longer contains the familiar icons in their customary places. Some brand-new buttons have appeared, and the existing ones have changed shape, color and position.

Many people don’t like change – they take the view that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”- whereas some people just see modifications and innovations as a natural part of using the technology we all need to do our jobs, in fact, in many cases nowadays, to simply live our lives. The former type of people, those who accept technological progress either while kicking and screaming or with grumpy shrugs of the shoulders, they’re the people who are most likely to benefit from an AI-powered digital adoption platform or DAP.

Forced updates

In fact, some employees or freelancers actively try to prevent software updates from happening at all, as they find them to be so disruptive to their daily productivity. As a result, some software manufacturers have even started to remove the option to prevent auto-updates, thereby forcing changes on software users whether they like it or not.

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These problems can be solved by using a DAP, which is a secondary ‘teaching layer’ of software, running alongside the primary platform to which it is allied. Think of the DAP as a ‘turbocharged tooltips’ provider, smart enough to know when, and crucially for whom, assistance is required during the workflow. DAPs are just one example of where the power of AI’s predictive analytics is being harnessed by enterprises the world over – put simply, if AI can prevent problems before they occur, that’s got to be good for everyone concerned.

Let’s use a graphic designer as an example, say he’s called Marc, whose employer has upgraded to a newer version of a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) package photo-editing platform. Marc opens up a file to select a group of people in an image, blur the background behind them and drop a blue sky with fluffy clouds into the grey skies already present. Normally Marc would use his ‘magic wand’ tool and set its feather parameters at, say, 20 pixels, to separate the people from the background of the image. But all of a sudden, the magic wand tool is gone. Marc clicks on the icon where it used to be found but encounters a completely different toolset. The software’s native help menu is as much use as a chocolate teapot as usual, so now Marc is foxed. He’s got to Google up the problem, which can take forever, or ask a colleague, which is going to be especially difficult if Marc is working from home.

Just wave the magic wand

This is where the DAP comes into its own. When Marc clicks an icon but doesn’t use it, the DAP can sense that Marc is having trouble, especially if he’s clicking several icons but not using any of them. The DAP will ‘know’ that the most recent software update moved the magic wand tool to a hidden part of the dashboard, so when Marc clicks the icon where the magic wand used to be, but then doesn’t continue with the workflow, the DAP might present Marc with a tooltip: “Marc, are you looking for the magic wand tool?’ You’ll find it under Tools > Selections >Magic Wand.”

Marc is delighted. But here’s the best bit. As the DAP works with each and every software user at a granular level, i.e. it is hyper-personalized, it will learn when Marc has taken the magic wand change onboard. So next time Marc clicks the old location for the magic wand, it will wait to see if Marc uses the new tool at that location. If he does, the DAP’s AI will know not to prompt Marc again about that particular issue. Imagine now that Mary sits at the same workstation a couple of hours later, the DAP will be working on Mary’s account, and will already be familiar with her own personal workflow habits, changing its output accordingly. The AI already knows that Mary is familiar with the location of the magic wand tool, so will respond with different help messages to Mary as she works away.

AI protecting companies’ reputations

It’s easy to see that having an AI-powered TutorBot like a DAP installed into software is like having a friendly, knowledgeable colleague sitting over an employee’s shoulder, but only offering help when it’s needed, not distracting with redundant advice when it’s not required.

Consequently, it’s also self-evident that workflows are going to be less hindered by software updates when a DAP is present. In the final analysis, as time equates to money, and companies’ reputations are at stake when mistakes are made, the use of a DAP in almost any aspect of technology is going to positively impact bottom-line profit for early DAP adopters.