AIRE Club #60: Organisational Change in the Age of AI

The event will be held in English

How Does AI Change the Organisation? People, Technology and the Challenges Already Here

Bringing AI into business processes is not an IT project. When AI is applied systematically, the way work is done changes, as do people’s roles and the whole logic of how an organisation and a company operate. AIRE Club #60, in cooperation with Milrem Robotics and Dragonfly, invites you to an event on a timely question: what changes does AI bring to organisations and the people in them? Dragonfly will give concrete examples of how adopting new technology affects a company and how that impact can be measured, and Milrem Robotics will lead a panel discussion on organisational change.

Many companies use AI every day, yet the way work is done has stayed the same as in previous years. Real change only appears when AI takes over an entire process and roles, goals and decision making are redesigned as a result. People’s work shifts towards where responsibility, judgement and communication are needed, and this calls for change across the whole organisation and company. 

Adopting AI is often met with resistance from employees. AI does not fix broken processes; it makes them even more visible, and the time it frees up may instead be absorbed by a growing workload if tasks are not redesigned. When part of the work is handed over to AI, the nature of work changes too: people are left with more complex decisions and new challenges, and adapting is not a one time effort, because change becomes part of everyday work. This can lead to resistance. Behind it there is usually no outright rejection of change, but an understandable reaction to questions that have not been answered: what is my role now, and is my work still judged by the same goals? 

If AI readiness is defined by how systematically an organisation has prepared for process innovation and to what extent its people are informed and ready for change, experience shows that most companies rate their readiness higher than it actually is. Without a clear picture, it is hard to decide where to start and what results to expect. The AIRE Club will address this question from the perspective of people, technology adoption and measurement. 

Topics: 

• what an organisation’s real readiness for adopting AI means; 
• why using AI does not yet mean that a company’s work has changed; 
• where change actually happens and how process innovation changes the flow of work, roles and decision making; 
• how to tell which processes are ready for AI and which need to be redesigned first; 
• whether the goal of AI is only cost savings or also growth and new business opportunities; 
• why apparent employee resistance is often a rational reaction to unanswered questions; 
• how to prevent AI adoption from increasing workload; 
• how to maintain the quality of decisions when there are more decisions to make and less time to think them through; 
• the role and responsibility of leaders in carrying out change; 
• how to assess readiness and measure change from both a technology and a people perspective, and which metrics to choose. 

Who should attend? 

The event is for everyone whose work and organisation are being changed by AI. We welcome company owners and leaders who decide where and why to apply AI, as well as those whose teams are seeing their ways of working and roles change. The topic matters just as much to those who put change into practice every day: people responsible for technology, data and information security, for processes and quality, and for HR and organisational development. The event also offers perspectives for specialists whose work is already changing with AI, and for consultants and advisers who help companies manage change. 

Agenda: 

15:30–16:00 Arrival and networking
16:00–16:20 Organisational change (Katre Eljas, CEO, AIRE)
16:20–16:50 AI readiness from a technology and people perspective, and how to measure the change (Dragonfly) 

16:50–17:30 Panel discussion (moderated by Marily Hendrikson, Milrem Robotics; panellists to be confirmed)
17:30–18:30 Networking 

Please note: places are limited and registration in advance is required.
See you at the AIRE Club!