AI at work:
a day in the life
How will business leaders’ lives change in the era of artificial intelligence? Discover what an AI-optimised workday might look like
The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is increasingly becoming a tangible force in the business world. Recent research from IBM found that 72 per cent of top-performing CEOs worldwide believe that competitive advantage already depends on who has access to the most advanced AI tools. Similarly, a study from Deloitte found that 71 per cent of C-suite leaders in the UK expect generative AI to transform their organisation within three years.
“Organisational design is going to change completely,” says Adam Spearing, Head of AI Innovation at the leading digital workflow company ServiceNow. “C-suite leaders are going to face a nice-to-have problem. We’re virtually saying to them: what will you do now that we’re effectively giving you, say, 10 per cent more staff at no extra cost?”
Companies see AI as an opportunity to transform their business strategy and build competitive advantage. A survey of 4,470 global business leaders by ServiceNow and Oxford Economics found that 81% of businesses will increase AI spend in 2025
But what does AI mean, in practice, for business leaders – and their workforces? To illustrate some of the ways in which AI will change how executives work, imagine a day in the life of Elizabeth, the CEO of a large consumer-products business with an ongoing AI investment programme.
Breakfast at home
Elizabeth’s day begins with a discussion over whose playlist will soundtrack breakfast. Her streaming service has curated a selection of tracks based on her previous listening habits, but the children have other ideas.
Meeting with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Risk Officer (CRO) to receive a data privacy and security briefing
Elizabeth believes the business’s ongoing investment in AI tools is the right strategy, but she’s also ensuring the organisation manages the risks these technologies might create. In response to questions from her board, Elizabeth has ordered a review of issues ranging from the “hallucinations” sometimes produced by generative AI to the reputational damage that a data breach would cause, particularly as the business leans more heavily on customer insight. The CIO and CRO will talk her through their strategy for addressing such concerns.
The CIO is in a tricky position of trying to go fast enough to keep up with AI challenges and innovations and to be ahead of the competition to satisfy the board but, equally, to make sure they protect the company
Meeting with the operations team to review call-centre performance
The business has recently introduced virtual-agent technology that aims to automate the response to more customer queries through the use of chatbots. Frontline staff can also use the tools to resolve customer issues more quickly, ideally without having to refer the problem on.
The goal is to reduce the burden on the customer support team by 90 per cent, and to cut escalations by 80 per cent. If the business is on target, Elizabeth plans to implement a new technology to take advantage of the way in which call centre agents’ time has been freed up. She also expects further productivity gains from automated task creation, triage and investigation.
Estimated 1.2 per cent increase in the level of UK productivity owed to use of generative AI. Or, compared with 2022 GDP, £31bn additional output in the UK per year
Meet with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to discuss a new sales campaign
As a first step, the marketing team has used ChatGPT to generate ideas for discussion. The CMO is keen to brief Elizabeth on what the technology has produced so far, and how he plans to use it going forward. He will also present new data on customer segmentation and reach; the marketing team’s AI tools have identified demographics in which sales appear to be lagging. The insights highlight strategies that might provide a boost.
Meet with Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) to discuss proposals for a change to the production process
Elizabeth has been eager to review the data collected by the CSCO’s team, which indicates that the company’s field engineers are taking longer than anticipated to resolve issues reported by clients. They blame a design issue that makes it harder than necessary to service and replace a key component. AI has made a challenging, closed-loop process more transparent.
The CSCO will also present the latest data on production line outages. Last year, Elizabeth became increasingly worried about the number of failures on key lines, but has adopted a new predictive maintenance tool, which uses AI to suggest when engineers might need to intervene before a breakdown.
AI is going to allow us to understand how the business operates horizontally, as well as vertically. And that is going to give C‑level executives levels of insight into things that we never even knew were happening within the business
Host town hall lunch meeting for staff
This town hall lunch gives Elizabeth an opportunity to hear feedback from the union representatives, who report that staff are concerned about rumours of job losses in the wake of new technology implementations. She has already given the union a presentation on how a new learning and development platform will help staff to upskill. After a positive reaction, she wants to demonstrate the platform to all staff.
Elizabeth has also asked the business’s “change champions” to take part in the briefings. These are key individuals from different functions of the business who have embraced innovation and become early adopters of new technology; they will talk to colleagues about how roles may now change.
Meeting with the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)
Elizabeth is keen to discuss new projects and technology involving AI in the HR department. First, she is keen to hear about plans for a new in-house “university” which will automatically identify learning opportunities for staff, matching training and education opportunities to skills the business needs to secure. She also wants to understand how the CHRO plans to resolve skills shortages through recruitment. Elizabeth and the CHRO will discuss a new AI tool that helps screen candidates for vacant roles, reducing unconscious bias and broadening the talent pool.
Meeting with the Chief Finance Officer (CFO)
Having signed off on significant investments in innovation over the past three years, Elizabeth and her finance team are interested to see evidence that this is driving business value. She and the CFO will use a range of AI-driven data dashboards with metrics on the business’s key performance indicators in order to begin a strategic review of returns on investment.
Circle size indicates the number of automatable jobs in each industry.
Capacity gain is time freed up from use of augmentation technologies
Training session on the company’s security protocols
Elizabeth is not exempt from the organisation’s requirements that all staff should undertake regular training on cyber security and data protection issues. She has put the session off, which risks her being locked out of part of the company’s IT systems, so this has automatically triggered a reminder. She notices that AI-powered chatbots have been integrated into these training programmes and that her team have therefore benefited from instant support and guidance throughout.
Leave for dinner with clients
Elizabeth is hosting an evening with clients that includes a talk from a guest speaker – a well-known political figure who was booked at the last minute after the original guest had to pull out. Elizabeth feels she needs to know more about him, so her executive assistant (EA) has used generative AI to pull together a briefing that Elizabeth will review during her journey to the restaurant. The EA also used AI to sketch out Elizabeth’s welcome speech, giving her a prompt that can then be personalised.
Review schedule for tomorrow
Elizabeth’s EA has assembled a pack briefing her on the next day’s meetings and activities. The process is automated, in sync with Elizabeth’s diary, and includes relevant insight and data extracted from the company’s systems.
Elizabeth can sleep soundly knowing AI is helping optimise her business – and her daily routine.
