AI-First: The Technological Revolution Held Back by Human Factors

The Rise of AI-First and Its Promises

Agentic AI, at the heart of the AI-First approach, promises to transform businesses by placing artificial intelligence at the center of their processes. Prominent figures like Elon Musk, who stated at Davos that a "smarter AI than any human" will be a reality by 2026, and Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, who claims that "the unaugmented human is already practically surpassed," extol the virtues of AI exceeding human capabilities. Dario Amodei of Anthropic already speaks of surpassing general AI. This concept, initially adopted by scale-ups, is now attracting large companies across various sectors such as HR, finance, and logistics.

In this context, the AI-First concept emerges: it involves redesigning a process by placing AI, and increasingly agentic AI, at the core of the system, with humans intervening as a complement. This concept originally comes from scale-ups, which have the luxury of starting from scratch. However, it is now appealing to many large companies, both for their support processes: HR, finance, procurement, communication, and for their core processes: engineering, production, logistics, sales, and customer relations.

In some cases, it is already a partial reality. Agentic AI is taking an increasingly prominent role in corporate strategies as well as in operational teams. However, the numbers remain stubborn: scaling up and thus achieving tangible impacts remain limited.

Obstacles to Widespread Adoption

However, the widespread adoption of AI-First faces major obstacles, primarily related to the transformation of jobs. A study by Wavestone and OpinionWay on AI in financial services reveals that nearly half of companies do not sufficiently integrate human resources into their transition to AI. Although AI is already present in the daily lives of 75% of employees, according to a study by Les Échos on Bring Your Own AI, its integration into business processes remains limited.

The extensive use of AI in a business process is of a different nature and encounters more barriers. A salesperson, for example, will willingly use assistants or small local AI agents to help target prospects, prepare meetings, and record reports. However, they may reject a top-down AI-First approach if they feel their "flair" is being taken away, or if they are asked to radically change their way of working by becoming a sort of super-controller of AI agents ("human in the loop"). This involves consenting to a profound change in daily work, customer interactions, compensation methods, and, more broadly, what constitutes the very identity of the job.

Involving Employees for Success

Two opposing approaches exist for integrating AI: the coercive approach, which pushes for a rethink of processes by reducing staff, and the human approach, which involves employees in the transformation. The coercive approach consists of creating a deliberate imbalance by reducing internal or external staff, in order to push those who remain, along with their management, to rethink processes in an AI-First mode. This logic is advocated by some players, particularly in Tech and Audit.

Companies like Decathlon, La Poste, Club Med, and certain mutual groups are betting on the human approach, valuing human engagement. The key to success lies in a balance between these approaches, with strong employee engagement to create tangible value.

In reality, most companies will need to find a balance between these two approaches. Some legacy processes or those already heavily outsourced may not call for a completely "human-first" approach. But one thing seems certain: in most cases, tangible value can only be created with strong employee engagement, thus with widespread adoption.

Conclusion: Humans at the Heart of AI

For AI to be truly adopted and generate tangible value, it is crucial that the transformation of jobs precedes technological integration. Employee engagement, based on a consensual redefinition of their roles, is essential for successfully navigating this transition. This engagement will only be real if employees predominantly find their interests aligned, which often implies that they have contributed to building the new process, with AI being more or less omnipresent, and above all, a new job made desirable.

Human: 1 / AI: 1!