Unchecked AI adoption is creating a hidden risk for organizations: “AI obesity.” As companies overconsume AI without clear strategy, they risk stifling innovation, weakening human skills, and undermining long-term resilience unless they rethink how AI and people work together.
SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Pascal Bornet – “AI Obesity: The Hidden Threat to Productivity and Innovation”
In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many organizations are falling into a dangerous trap. They’re gorging on AI capabilities without a clear strategy or consideration of the side effects. The result is a phenomenon I call “AI obesity” – an unhealthy accumulation of AI that leads to bloated processes, stifled innovation, and diminished human capabilities.
Just as with physical obesity, AI obesity creeps up gradually. Companies add AI tools and features, believing that more is always better. However, over time, this unchecked AI consumption can clog the arteries of an organization, slowing it down and increasing the risk of major failures.
In this article, we will explore the causes and consequences of AI obesity, how to diagnose it in your organization, and strategies to achieve a healthier balance of human and artificial intelligence. By understanding and addressing AI obesity, leaders can ensure their AI initiatives truly enhance rather than hinder organizational performance.
The Rise of AI Obesity
The term “AI obesity” may seem provocative, but it aptly describes a growing problem as AI becomes ubiquitous in business. Like the obesity epidemic in public health, AI obesity is fueled by an environment of abundance and convenience, coupled with a lack of moderation and understanding of long-term consequences.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe to our AI NAVIGATOR!
Several factors are contributing to the spread of AI obesity. Firstly, there’s an AI arms race, where many companies fear falling behind competitors, leading to hasty and indiscriminate adoption of AI capabilities. Secondly, AI vendors and consultants often promote a “more is better” approach, encouraging companies to layer on AI features across their operations.
Moreover, there’s a tendency towards technological solutionism, viewing AI as a cure-all for organizational problems while ignoring underlying issues or human factors. This is exacerbated by a lack of AI literacy among many leaders and employees, who don’t fully understand AI’s capabilities and limitations, leading to overreliance or misapplication.
Furthermore, short-term thinking plays a role, as the immediate efficiency gains from AI can blind organizations to the longer-term impacts on innovation, skills, and culture. As a result of these factors, many companies are now suffering from various symptoms of AI obesity, often without realizing the root cause.
Symptoms of AI Obesity
Based on extensive experience in the field, several key warning signs of AI obesity have been identified. One of the most prominent symptoms is decision paralysis, where an overabundance of AI-generated data and recommendations leads to analysis paralysis or decision-by-algorithm, with humans reluctant to override AI suggestions.
Another concerning symptom is skill atrophy. As AI takes over more tasks, human employees lose critical skills and the ability to perform without AI assistance. This is often accompanied by a creativity drought, where over-reliance on AI for idea generation and problem-solving leads to a decline in novel, out-of-the-box thinking.
Furthermore, critical business processes can become opaque as layers of AI obscure understanding of how decisions are actually made, creating black box processes. This lack of transparency can lead to AI addiction, where employees and leaders become overly dependent on AI tools, struggling to function effectively when systems are down or unavailable.
In addition, AI obesity can create a culture clash within organizations, developing a rift between AI enthusiasts and skeptics, which hinders collaboration and creates resistance to change. This is often accompanied by data bloat, where the organization accumulates vast amounts of data to feed AI systems, much of it redundant or low-value, creating storage and privacy challenges.
Ethical considerations are another casualty of AI obesity. In the rush to implement AI, ethical blind spots around bias, privacy, and societal impact are often overlooked. This can lead to innovation stagnation, where incremental, AI-driven optimizations crowd out more radical innovation and human-led breakthroughs.
Lastly, but crucially, AI obesity can result in customer disconnect. Overuse of AI in customer interactions can lead to a loss of human touch and empathy, potentially damaging valuable relationships.
Case Study: AI Obesity in Action
To illustrate the real-world impact of AI obesity, let’s consider the cautionary tale of Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant. While Ant Group has successfully leveraged AI in many areas, there have been instances where their heavy reliance on AI has led to challenges.
Ant Group uses AI extensively for credit scoring, fraud detection, and customer service. However, their rapid AI-driven growth has sometimes outpaced their ability to manage risks and maintain regulatory compliance. In 2020, Chinese regulators halted Ant Group’s planned IPO, citing concerns about the company’s complex business model and the potential risks associated with its AI-driven lending practices.
This regulatory scrutiny highlighted several symptoms of AI obesity. Firstly, the company’s heavy reliance on AI for credit decisions raised concerns about transparency and fairness. Secondly, the rapid scaling of AI-driven services outpaced the development of robust risk management practices. Furthermore, there were questions about whether the human oversight of AI systems was sufficient to catch potential issues.
While Ant Group has since worked to address these concerns, this example demonstrates how even technologically advanced companies can fall into the AI obesity trap if they don’t maintain a balanced approach to AI adoption.
Diagnosing AI Obesity in Your Organization
To determine if your company is at risk of or already suffering from AI obesity, it’s important to consider several diagnostic questions. Firstly, assess your organization’s AI dependency: can your organization still function effectively if AI systems are unavailable for an extended period?
Next, examine the state of human skills in your organization. Are employees maintaining and developing their “Humics” (human-centric skills) in areas where AI is now used, or is there a risk of critical knowledge loss?
It’s also crucial to evaluate your decision-making processes. How often are AI recommendations questioned or overridden by human judgment? Is there a healthy skepticism towards AI outputs? Additionally, consider the sources of innovation in your organization. What percentage of new ideas and innovations come from human creativity versus AI-generated suggestions?
Process transparency is another key area to examine. How well do employees and leaders understand the AI systems and algorithms driving key business processes? Similarly, assess your organization’s approach to ethics and governance. Are there robust processes in place for evaluating the ethical implications and potential biases of AI systems?
Customer feedback can provide valuable insights into potential AI obesity. Have customers expressed frustration with overuse of AI or a desire for more human interaction? Also, consider your organization’s data practices. Is your organization collecting and storing more data than it can effectively use or govern?
Furthermore, evaluate your AI strategy. Is there a clear, strategic rationale for each AI implementation, or are AI tools adopted primarily because they’re available or trendy? Lastly, consider the cultural impact of AI adoption. How has it affected company culture, employee satisfaction, and ways of working?
If your responses to these questions reveal signs of AI obesity, it’s time to consider a healthier approach to AI integration.
Achieving AI Fitness: Strategies for a Balanced Approach
Just as with physical health, achieving AI fitness requires a balanced diet, regular exercise, and mindful consumption. Here are key strategies for avoiding or overcoming AI obesity:
Firstly, develop AI literacy. Ensure that leaders and employees across the organization have a solid understanding of AI capabilities, limitations, and implications. This foundational knowledge is crucial for making informed decisions about AI adoption and use.
Secondly, adopt a human-centered AI strategy. Rather than implementing AI for its own sake, focus on how it can augment and empower human capabilities. Identify areas where AI can take over routine tasks to free up humans for higher-value work.
Furthermore, implement AI governance. Establish clear guidelines, ethical standards, and oversight mechanisms for AI development and deployment. This helps prevent unchecked proliferation of AI and ensures alignment with organizational values.
It’s also crucial to preserve and develop Humics. Even as AI takes over certain tasks, continue to train employees in foundational human-centric skills or “Humics”: genuine creativity, critical thinking, and social authenticity. This maintains critical capabilities that AI cannot replicate.
Moreover, encourage AI-human collaboration. Design workflows and systems that facilitate productive partnerships between humans and AI, rather than simply automating humans out of the loop.
Practice data minimalism instead of collecting all possible data. Focus on acquiring and retaining only the most valuable and relevant information. This reduces bloat and privacy risks while improving AI performance.
Additionally, maintain transparency and explainability. Prioritize AI systems and algorithms that can be understood and audited by humans. Avoid black box solutions for critical business processes.
Don’t forget to cultivate creativity and innovation. Create space for human-led innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. Don’t rely solely on AI-generated ideas and optimizations.
Balancing efficiency and empathy is also key. While leveraging AI for efficiency, ensure that customer interactions retain a human touch where it matters most.
Lastly, conduct regular AI audits. Periodically review your AI implementations to assess their effectiveness, necessity, and potential negative impacts. Be willing to scale back or eliminate AI systems that are not providing clear value.
Putting AI on a Healthy Diet: A Roadmap
Transitioning from AI obesity to AI fitness is not a quick fix but a long-term lifestyle change. Here’s a roadmap for organizations looking to achieve a healthier balance:
The journey begins with assessing the current state. In the first three months, conduct a comprehensive audit of all AI systems and their impacts. Survey employees and customers on their experiences with AI and identify areas of over-reliance or potential risk.
Next, develop a balanced AI strategy over the following three months. Articulate a clear vision for human-AI collaboration, set guidelines for AI adoption and use, and establish governance structures and ethical frameworks.
The following six months should focus on slimming down and toning up. Eliminate or reduce redundant or low-value AI systems, invest in AI literacy and Humics training for employees, and redesign key processes to optimize human-AI interaction.
Over the next year, build new habits. Implement regular review cycles for AI systems, foster a culture of responsible AI use, and develop metrics to track both AI and human contributions to value creation.
Finally, maintain AI fitness as an ongoing process. Continuously refine the balance between human and artificial intelligence, stay informed about AI developments and potential risks, and celebrate and reward examples of effective human-AI collaboration.
Conclusion: The Future is Fit, Not Fat
As AI continues to advance, the temptation towards AI obesity will only grow stronger. More powerful algorithms, abundant data, and plug-and-play AI solutions make it easier than ever to layer on artificial intelligence without careful consideration.
However, the organizations that thrive in the AI era will be those that achieve true AI fitness. They will leverage AI’s strengths while cultivating uniquely human capabilities. They will use AI to augment rather than replace human intelligence, leading to more robust, adaptable, and innovative enterprises.
Avoiding AI obesity requires ongoing effort and mindfulness. Leaders must foster AI literacy, implement strong governance, and continuously reassess the balance between human and artificial intelligence. Employees need to develop new skills for effective human-AI collaboration while maintaining their core Humics.
The prize for achieving AI fitness is substantial: organizations that get the balance right can realize the full productivity and innovation benefits of AI while strengthening their human capital and competitive differentiation.
In conclusion, AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a substitute for human wisdom, creativity, and judgment. By avoiding the trap of AI obesity, companies can harness the transformative potential of artificial intelligence while remaining fundamentally human enterprises. The future belongs not to the AI-heavy, but to the AI-fit. It’s time for organizations to put their AI use on a healthy diet and exercise plan. The resulting AI fitness will create stronger, more resilient companies ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the coming decades.
About the Author:
Pascal Bornet is the author of IRREPLACEABLE: The Art of Standing Out in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He is an award-winning expert, author, and keynote speaker on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation. With over 1 million LinkedIn followers, he has been recognized as a Top Voice in Technology. Bornet developed his expertise over more than 20 years as a senior executive at McKinsey and EY, where he created and led their “Intelligent Automation” practices and implemented AI initiatives for hundreds of organizations around the world.
Unchecked AI adoption is creating a hidden risk for organizations: “AI obesity.” As companies overconsume AI without clear strategy, they risk stifling innovation, weakening human skills, and undermining long-term resilience unless they rethink how AI and people work together.
SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Pascal Bornet – “AI Obesity: The Hidden Threat to Productivity and Innovation”
In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many organizations are falling into a dangerous trap. They’re gorging on AI capabilities without a clear strategy or consideration of the side effects. The result is a phenomenon I call “AI obesity” – an unhealthy accumulation of AI that leads to bloated processes, stifled innovation, and diminished human capabilities.
Just as with physical obesity, AI obesity creeps up gradually. Companies add AI tools and features, believing that more is always better. However, over time, this unchecked AI consumption can clog the arteries of an organization, slowing it down and increasing the risk of major failures.
In this article, we will explore the causes and consequences of AI obesity, how to diagnose it in your organization, and strategies to achieve a healthier balance of human and artificial intelligence. By understanding and addressing AI obesity, leaders can ensure their AI initiatives truly enhance rather than hinder organizational performance.
The Rise of AI Obesity
The term “AI obesity” may seem provocative, but it aptly describes a growing problem as AI becomes ubiquitous in business. Like the obesity epidemic in public health, AI obesity is fueled by an environment of abundance and convenience, coupled with a lack of moderation and understanding of long-term consequences.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe to our AI NAVIGATOR!
Several factors are contributing to the spread of AI obesity. Firstly, there’s an AI arms race, where many companies fear falling behind competitors, leading to hasty and indiscriminate adoption of AI capabilities. Secondly, AI vendors and consultants often promote a “more is better” approach, encouraging companies to layer on AI features across their operations.
Moreover, there’s a tendency towards technological solutionism, viewing AI as a cure-all for organizational problems while ignoring underlying issues or human factors. This is exacerbated by a lack of AI literacy among many leaders and employees, who don’t fully understand AI’s capabilities and limitations, leading to overreliance or misapplication.
Furthermore, short-term thinking plays a role, as the immediate efficiency gains from AI can blind organizations to the longer-term impacts on innovation, skills, and culture. As a result of these factors, many companies are now suffering from various symptoms of AI obesity, often without realizing the root cause.
Symptoms of AI Obesity
Based on extensive experience in the field, several key warning signs of AI obesity have been identified. One of the most prominent symptoms is decision paralysis, where an overabundance of AI-generated data and recommendations leads to analysis paralysis or decision-by-algorithm, with humans reluctant to override AI suggestions.
Another concerning symptom is skill atrophy. As AI takes over more tasks, human employees lose critical skills and the ability to perform without AI assistance. This is often accompanied by a creativity drought, where over-reliance on AI for idea generation and problem-solving leads to a decline in novel, out-of-the-box thinking.
Furthermore, critical business processes can become opaque as layers of AI obscure understanding of how decisions are actually made, creating black box processes. This lack of transparency can lead to AI addiction, where employees and leaders become overly dependent on AI tools, struggling to function effectively when systems are down or unavailable.
In addition, AI obesity can create a culture clash within organizations, developing a rift between AI enthusiasts and skeptics, which hinders collaboration and creates resistance to change. This is often accompanied by data bloat, where the organization accumulates vast amounts of data to feed AI systems, much of it redundant or low-value, creating storage and privacy challenges.
Ethical considerations are another casualty of AI obesity. In the rush to implement AI, ethical blind spots around bias, privacy, and societal impact are often overlooked. This can lead to innovation stagnation, where incremental, AI-driven optimizations crowd out more radical innovation and human-led breakthroughs.
Lastly, but crucially, AI obesity can result in customer disconnect. Overuse of AI in customer interactions can lead to a loss of human touch and empathy, potentially damaging valuable relationships.
Case Study: AI Obesity in Action
To illustrate the real-world impact of AI obesity, let’s consider the cautionary tale of Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant. While Ant Group has successfully leveraged AI in many areas, there have been instances where their heavy reliance on AI has led to challenges.
Ant Group uses AI extensively for credit scoring, fraud detection, and customer service. However, their rapid AI-driven growth has sometimes outpaced their ability to manage risks and maintain regulatory compliance. In 2020, Chinese regulators halted Ant Group’s planned IPO, citing concerns about the company’s complex business model and the potential risks associated with its AI-driven lending practices.
This regulatory scrutiny highlighted several symptoms of AI obesity. Firstly, the company’s heavy reliance on AI for credit decisions raised concerns about transparency and fairness. Secondly, the rapid scaling of AI-driven services outpaced the development of robust risk management practices. Furthermore, there were questions about whether the human oversight of AI systems was sufficient to catch potential issues.
While Ant Group has since worked to address these concerns, this example demonstrates how even technologically advanced companies can fall into the AI obesity trap if they don’t maintain a balanced approach to AI adoption.
Diagnosing AI Obesity in Your Organization
To determine if your company is at risk of or already suffering from AI obesity, it’s important to consider several diagnostic questions. Firstly, assess your organization’s AI dependency: can your organization still function effectively if AI systems are unavailable for an extended period?
Next, examine the state of human skills in your organization. Are employees maintaining and developing their “Humics” (human-centric skills) in areas where AI is now used, or is there a risk of critical knowledge loss?
It’s also crucial to evaluate your decision-making processes. How often are AI recommendations questioned or overridden by human judgment? Is there a healthy skepticism towards AI outputs? Additionally, consider the sources of innovation in your organization. What percentage of new ideas and innovations come from human creativity versus AI-generated suggestions?
Process transparency is another key area to examine. How well do employees and leaders understand the AI systems and algorithms driving key business processes? Similarly, assess your organization’s approach to ethics and governance. Are there robust processes in place for evaluating the ethical implications and potential biases of AI systems?
Customer feedback can provide valuable insights into potential AI obesity. Have customers expressed frustration with overuse of AI or a desire for more human interaction? Also, consider your organization’s data practices. Is your organization collecting and storing more data than it can effectively use or govern?
Furthermore, evaluate your AI strategy. Is there a clear, strategic rationale for each AI implementation, or are AI tools adopted primarily because they’re available or trendy? Lastly, consider the cultural impact of AI adoption. How has it affected company culture, employee satisfaction, and ways of working?
If your responses to these questions reveal signs of AI obesity, it’s time to consider a healthier approach to AI integration.
Achieving AI Fitness: Strategies for a Balanced Approach
Just as with physical health, achieving AI fitness requires a balanced diet, regular exercise, and mindful consumption. Here are key strategies for avoiding or overcoming AI obesity:
Firstly, develop AI literacy. Ensure that leaders and employees across the organization have a solid understanding of AI capabilities, limitations, and implications. This foundational knowledge is crucial for making informed decisions about AI adoption and use.
Secondly, adopt a human-centered AI strategy. Rather than implementing AI for its own sake, focus on how it can augment and empower human capabilities. Identify areas where AI can take over routine tasks to free up humans for higher-value work.
Furthermore, implement AI governance. Establish clear guidelines, ethical standards, and oversight mechanisms for AI development and deployment. This helps prevent unchecked proliferation of AI and ensures alignment with organizational values.
It’s also crucial to preserve and develop Humics. Even as AI takes over certain tasks, continue to train employees in foundational human-centric skills or “Humics”: genuine creativity, critical thinking, and social authenticity. This maintains critical capabilities that AI cannot replicate.
Moreover, encourage AI-human collaboration. Design workflows and systems that facilitate productive partnerships between humans and AI, rather than simply automating humans out of the loop.
Practice data minimalism instead of collecting all possible data. Focus on acquiring and retaining only the most valuable and relevant information. This reduces bloat and privacy risks while improving AI performance.
Additionally, maintain transparency and explainability. Prioritize AI systems and algorithms that can be understood and audited by humans. Avoid black box solutions for critical business processes.
Don’t forget to cultivate creativity and innovation. Create space for human-led innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. Don’t rely solely on AI-generated ideas and optimizations.
Balancing efficiency and empathy is also key. While leveraging AI for efficiency, ensure that customer interactions retain a human touch where it matters most.
Lastly, conduct regular AI audits. Periodically review your AI implementations to assess their effectiveness, necessity, and potential negative impacts. Be willing to scale back or eliminate AI systems that are not providing clear value.
Putting AI on a Healthy Diet: A Roadmap
Transitioning from AI obesity to AI fitness is not a quick fix but a long-term lifestyle change. Here’s a roadmap for organizations looking to achieve a healthier balance:
The journey begins with assessing the current state. In the first three months, conduct a comprehensive audit of all AI systems and their impacts. Survey employees and customers on their experiences with AI and identify areas of over-reliance or potential risk.
Next, develop a balanced AI strategy over the following three months. Articulate a clear vision for human-AI collaboration, set guidelines for AI adoption and use, and establish governance structures and ethical frameworks.
The following six months should focus on slimming down and toning up. Eliminate or reduce redundant or low-value AI systems, invest in AI literacy and Humics training for employees, and redesign key processes to optimize human-AI interaction.
Over the next year, build new habits. Implement regular review cycles for AI systems, foster a culture of responsible AI use, and develop metrics to track both AI and human contributions to value creation.
Finally, maintain AI fitness as an ongoing process. Continuously refine the balance between human and artificial intelligence, stay informed about AI developments and potential risks, and celebrate and reward examples of effective human-AI collaboration.
Conclusion: The Future is Fit, Not Fat
As AI continues to advance, the temptation towards AI obesity will only grow stronger. More powerful algorithms, abundant data, and plug-and-play AI solutions make it easier than ever to layer on artificial intelligence without careful consideration.
However, the organizations that thrive in the AI era will be those that achieve true AI fitness. They will leverage AI’s strengths while cultivating uniquely human capabilities. They will use AI to augment rather than replace human intelligence, leading to more robust, adaptable, and innovative enterprises.
Avoiding AI obesity requires ongoing effort and mindfulness. Leaders must foster AI literacy, implement strong governance, and continuously reassess the balance between human and artificial intelligence. Employees need to develop new skills for effective human-AI collaboration while maintaining their core Humics.
The prize for achieving AI fitness is substantial: organizations that get the balance right can realize the full productivity and innovation benefits of AI while strengthening their human capital and competitive differentiation.
In conclusion, AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a substitute for human wisdom, creativity, and judgment. By avoiding the trap of AI obesity, companies can harness the transformative potential of artificial intelligence while remaining fundamentally human enterprises. The future belongs not to the AI-heavy, but to the AI-fit. It’s time for organizations to put their AI use on a healthy diet and exercise plan. The resulting AI fitness will create stronger, more resilient companies ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the coming decades.
About the Author:
Pascal Bornet is the author of IRREPLACEABLE: The Art of Standing Out in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He is an award-winning expert, author, and keynote speaker on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation. With over 1 million LinkedIn followers, he has been recognized as a Top Voice in Technology. Bornet developed his expertise over more than 20 years as a senior executive at McKinsey and EY, where he created and led their “Intelligent Automation” practices and implemented AI initiatives for hundreds of organizations around the world.
Share this: