Employees are burned out, and they need tools to simplify and streamline their work.
According to some estimates, low employee productivity costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually. Employees need ways to lift their heavy workload, and that’s what they gain when they use an AI-powered intranet. This article will look at how teams can accomplish more in less time using GenAI for productivity within a modern intranet like Simpplr.
Table of contents: Using GenAI for productivity with a modern intranet
- What is GenAI?
- How GenAI improves productivity
- Combining GenAI within a modern intranet
- How to use GenAI for productivity within an intranet
- Avoiding potential pitfalls of GenAI
- Use GenAI to improve productivity with a modern intranet
What is GenAI?
GenAI, or generative artificial intelligence, is a type of machine learning that produces new content (including text, images, data and videos) in response to user prompts. When a user enters a request or question, GenAI employs artificial intelligence to produce content that matches the input. GenAI’s responses are based on patterns it learns from data it has been trained on, and the results are often delivered within a matter of seconds.
Discover how AI can help create a modern employee experience
How GenAI improves productivity
GenAI can increase productivity by slashing the time it takes to accomplish a variety of tasks. For example, workers can use GenAI to quickly write email drafts, analyze employee data, and find contextual answers to company policies.
Organizations are already seeing the power GenAI has to boost productivity. In a Forbes Advisor survey, 64% of respondents said they believe AI will increase productivity within their organizations in the next year. And a survey conducted by the MIT Sloan School of Management found a 40%-percent performance boost for workers who leverage AI compared to those who don’t.
When artificial intelligence is paired with the right tools and strategies, GenAI for productivity empowers employees to:
- complete tasks in less time.
- automate repetitive tasks.
- find information faster.
- quickly uncover insights and trends in data.
- minimize back-and-forth communication.
- identify opportunities to streamline workflows.
Let’s look at how organizations can make the most of GenAI by combining it with a modern intranet to boost productivity across the board.
Explore our comprehensive guide to boosting employee productivity
Combining GenAI within a modern intranet
GenAI exists in standalone tools, such as ChatGPT, but it can also be incorporated into existing software like a modern intranet. And the effective integration of AI to solve a variety of use cases can be a game-changer for organizations looking to improve employee productivity and more. Simpplr has incorporated artificial intelligence features into its software to help employees make their workday more efficient, more productive and less stressful.
According to the 2023 Gartner® Critical Capabilities for Intranet Packaged Solutions (IPS) report:
“While AI is still emerging for many IPS competitors, Simpplr offers fully functional and integrated AI applied to a wide range of functions. For example, Simpplr uses AI to boost analytics and personalization, learning employee preferences and analyzing intranet activity to deliver insights, recommendations, and predictions to intranet managers and end users. AI-powered content moderation helps to ensure compliance and content hygiene by employing autolabeling, tagging and categorization.”
Simpplr scored the highest among 15 IPS vendors in five of six use cases, including Employee Communications and Engagement, Employee Services, Knowledge Services, Work Management and Frontline Worker Support.
In some cases, Simpplr’s AI features operate in the background, helping employees complete their tasks with less friction and frustration. In others, employees can actively use GenAI tools to create content and speed up the time it takes to produce output, insights and ideas.
Get complimentary access to the full critical capabilities report
How to use GenAI for productivity within an intranet
Let’s look at a few ways an intranet powered by GenAI can heighten productivity across a variety of departments within your organization.
GenAI for internal communication
An intranet centralizes internal communications within an organization. The integration of GenAI can transform the intranet into an even more powerful machine for sharing essential information.
Quickly create content such as emails, newsletters, memos and presentations with GenAI writing assistance. For instance, with Simpplr’s writing assistant, employees enter prompts and the writing assistant quickly returns drafts they can finesse for style and tone.
This might include:
- instantly generating ideas, outlines and drafts for content.
- improving writing for clarity.
- producing more on-brand, concise messaging.
Deliver personalized information to employees so they can perform their jobs efficiently and effectively. AI-driven personalization tailors an employee’s intranet content stream based on their preferences and search behavior to serve up relevant information automatically.
This means:
- receiving personalized employee newsletters with content relevant to their role and needs.
- targeting the right communications and content right away.
- saving time by eliminating the need to sift through content to find what’s pertinent.
Help employees quickly find the information they need with GenAI virtual assistance. With Simpplr’s AI-powered Virtual Assistant, employees enter a question or request and the tool combines information from multiple sources to provide relevant answers and execute simple tasks within seconds.
Virtual Assistant can help:
- Internal communications by building and establishing a common company voice, culture and brand across the organization.
- Improve the employee experience by eliminating excessive clicks and extensive searches.
- Save time and boost productivity by cutting down on email back-and-forths between departments.
Learn what to know when using AI in communications strategy
GenAI for human resources
GenAI within a modern intranet can act as a support system for the human resources department — taking many routine tasks off their plate as AI is integrated into employees’ day-to-day workflows.
Expedite human resources tasks. AI-powered virtual assistance can act as a live chat that supports employees with HR tasks. Without needing to talk to an HR representative, employees can use the chat to submit requests and get answers to HR-related questions.
This enables the HR team to:
- reduce time spent looking for information and drafting content.
- decrease the volume of email exchanges and ticket requests.
- fast-track HR request processing.
Help HR teams gather data and analyze employee sentiment. How we work today — with teams distributed, frontline employees often disconnected, etc. — it’s harder to hear, see and understand the depths of employee sentiment.
That’s where an AI-powered intranet can make a huge difference, enabling HR leaders to:
- spend less time interpreting employee data.
- uncover underlying sentiments and emotions.
- identify pain points and areas of improvement, facilitating better decision-making and an enhanced employee experience.
Gartner’s critical capabilities report states that Simpplr’s “out-of-the box analytics are rich, well-aligned with intranet goals, and capable of capturing in-the-moment employee sentiment.”
A modern intranet like Simpplr incorporates employee listening tools that analyze sentiment and identify trends from employee feedback. By gathering insights from surveys, comments and other feedback sources within the intranet platform, HR leaders can make data-driven decisions to elevate the employee experience.
Simpplr’s Employee Listening combines survey responses with AI-powered passive listening to detect underlying sentiments and emotions, helping HR leaders understand the unspoken pain points. They get insights into a broad range of sentiment data gathered throughout the Simpplr platform, incorporating polls, pulse and traditional surveys, Sentiment check, Awareness check, and everyday interactions, like comments.
GenAI for operations
Throughout an organization, using an intranet and GenAI for productivity can speed up the time it takes to complete tasks by providing employees with the right information at the right time.
Deliver more relevant search results. The time employees spend looking for answers to their questions adds up to frustration and lost productivity. Again, GenAI can solve that problem by streamlining the information retrieval process while improving the employee experience.
Simpplr’s Smart answers capability, for instance, uses GenAI to provide concise and reliable answers to user queries. The tool displays a comprehensive and tailored answer by summarizing the updates (along with relevant citations) at the top of the search results page — eliminating the need to navigate through numerous web pages and click on multiple links.
Help admins keep the intranet organized and up to date so it is more useful for teams and employees. Intranet content governance, like Simpplr’s Auto-Governance Engine™, relies on AI for efficient decision-making.
Throughout the platform, Simpplr’s Auto-Governance Engine leverages AI to automatically monitor, surface and unpublish outdated content — reducing the burden on intranet admins. Authors and site owners get alerts when their content needs a refresh. News management algorithms naturally deprioritize older news. And analytics surface content that’s collecting dust.
In performing these tasks, AI-directed auto-governance improves productivity by:
- decreasing the administrative burden of intranet content governance.
- reducing the need to manually manage content accuracy.
- Keeping intranet content relevant and up-to-date which is critical for high user adoption
Learn how the right intranet can break the IT dependency cycle
Avoiding potential pitfalls of GenAI
As you can see, AI can help teams create shortcuts and optimize their time. But if you and your organization plan to use GenAI for productivity, there are also a few pitfalls to be aware of.
AI is not always perfect. To get the best use out of artificial intelligence, keep an eye out for:
- Inaccuracies: GenAI may produce errors, so it should be reviewed by humans to ensure the information it produces is accurate and current.
- Biases: AI may lack a nuanced understanding of expression, tone and context, so humans should check it for biases.
- Repetition: AI may produce similar content for similar prompts, so it’s important to rework content to include your unique voice and perspective.
- Security: Ensure the information generated by AI isn’t stored or shared somewhere without your explicit consent. For example, Simpplr’s Smart answers feature is built on Simpplr’s secure platform and utilizes large language models (LLMs) through Microsoft’s Azure platform — providing a higher level of security and trust and more control over the data passed to them. The data is encrypted on Azure servers, deleted after a short while, and not used for any other purpose, including training LLMs.
When used alongside the right strategies and tools, GenAI has the power to increase employee productivity and help teams accomplish more in less time. As your team embraces AI, prioritize training on best practices and develop an AI philosophy.
Core principles guide Simpplr’s product development and AI implementations. Its commitment to using AI responsibly is reflected by its membership with the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Institute. Simpplr believes that AI:
- must be accessible and useful.
- should assist people, not replace them.
- must respect data privacy.
- must be used responsibly.
The best way to leverage GenAI within your organization is to understand its abilities and limitations and train your team on how to use AI to boost their experience, abilities and productivity.
Use GenAI to improve productivity with a modern intranet
Artificial intelligence is not reserved for the most tech-savvy, futuristic organizations. GenAI for productivity is now accessible to any organization or individual who wants to be more resourceful and efficient.
New AI tools, like those integrated in Simpplr’s intranet, have made it possible for employees at all levels to benefit from using GenAI for internal communication, IT, operations, human resources and more.
Now that you know how GenAI improves productivity, it’s time to start implementing tools and strategies to help your team save time and work more effectively. Request a demo to see how Simpplr uses the power of AI to boost productivity and elevate the employee experience.
