If you’re wondering how AI can act as a digital colleague, think of it as a high-performing assistant that integrates into your team’s daily workflow

AI is getting smarter. Beyond handling routine tasks and supporting customer service, it’s now able to contribute towards strategic decision-making, and is even discovering new drugs and bespoke clinical treatment options for life threatening illnesses. 

It’s all exciting stuff, this new digital frontier of ours. But tipping the balance of ‘too much AI’ – at least for now – can disrupt the core fabric of the human-centric world we live in.  

And this is the conundrum that CIOs are increasingly facing: how much AI is enough AI, without impacting the broader organisational workforce? The answer lies in a new approach. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for human processes, Pragmatic AI positions AI as a tool that enhances workflows, empowers employees, and maintains the integrity of human-led decision-making.  

Put simply, Pragmatic AI views AI as a ‘digital colleague’. It’s an approach that is especially viable in regulated or unionised environments, because instead of focusing on replacing human interaction, it supports employees by taking on repetitive, data-heavy tasks, allowing them to focus on more intricate, high-value activities.  

What does it mean for AI to act as a ‘digital colleague’? 

The concept of a ‘digital colleague’ isn’t the same as ‘automation’. While automation has often been built to replace human roles, a digital colleague works alongside employees, supporting them instead of substituting them.  

So if you’re wondering how AI can act as a digital colleague, think of it as a high-performing assistant that integrates into your team’s daily workflow. The digital colleague handles mundane tasks, reduces errors, and supports human decision-making.  

It means, for example, that the digital colleague might triage customer interactions, working through routine enquiries while assigning high-priority cases for its human colleague to handle. Or it might work in the background to surveil volumes of high-risk transactions in real time, and the moment it detects something fishy, instantly alert a human for their judgement. 

AI in unionised or regulated organisations? Totally doable.  

The adoption of AI is often met with scepticism in regulated industries, or organisations with high proportions of organised labour. Last year, Gartner found that over 50% of employees in these sectors expressed concerns over what AI would do to their roles. And this year, Gartner announced that it expects the rate of unionisation among knowledge workers to increase by 1,000% by 2028, mostly driven by unfettered organisational adoption of GenAI. 

The other side of this coin, according to PwC, is that enterprise AI adoption is one-third more successful in environments where employees see the technology as complementary rather than competitive.  

This is where Pragmatic AI’s digital colleague model addresses one of the largest challenges in enterprise AI: employee buy-in. By supporting rather than replacing, Pragmatic AI aims to win employee trust and transform perceptions. By focusing on use-case-driven AI innovation, CIOs can roll out AI to create high-performing operations without the typical fears associated with workforce disruption. 

It means: 

• Enhanced Productivity: AI handles repetitive tasks, employees handle high-value delivery. 

• Reduced Operational Costs: Workflows become optimised, improving human bandwidth and lower cost. 

• Higher Employee Engagement: As employees increasingly view AI as a digital colleague, so do their levels of trust and job satisfaction.  

• Scalability: The digital colleague model is scalable, allowing gradual adoption in line with employee buy in. By gradually introducing AI in targeted ways, the digital colleague model fosters a culture of innovation while keeping employee trust intact. 

• Improved Decision-Making: Through fast insights that support data-driven decisions, empowering teams to make smarter choices quickly. 

Achieved by Pragmatic AI 

Gartner estimates that 88% of all enterprise AI projects fail because of complexity, misaligned goals, poor scalability, vague use cases and employee mistrust. 

Our Pragmatic AI approach, which includes the digital colleague, was designed with this in mind. It provides a more structured, risk-managed approach, which instead of pursuing all-encompassing AI systems, encourages immediate, measurable value through carefully scoped, achievable and use-case-driven AI projects. Additionally, it isn’t about throwing away what you have – the approach advocates for reuse and adoption of existing technologies, products and infrastructures. 

It means that CIO’s can gradually scale AI in their organisations. Pragmatic AI starts small, proving immediate value in meeting its defined use case. The AI is then expanded as the organisation’s or use case’s needs evolve.  

This phased approach aligns perfectly with environments where risk and large-scale experimentation are often impractical.  

We believe that the future lies in collaborative, empowering AI innovation. Pragmatic AI stands out by focusing on partnership and reuse, not replacement. It is proven, backed up by a living framework, and has been delivered to some of Britain’s largest and most complex organisations.  

Perhaps you’re now wondering how Pragmatic AI might transform AI innovation in your organisation, helping you to achieve real, measurable results while building a more engaged and productive workforce. To learn more about this sustainable, scalable approach, download our Pragmatic AI whitepaper.