How should organisations design human- AI collaboration so that technology reduces operational noise rather than adding to it?
Rakshit: It’ s important that we don’ t start with the tool, but instead with the points in the day where work feels harder than it should. Where are people switching between systems? Where are they waiting for support? Once you understand that, you can decide what AI should handle in the background and where people still need to make the call.
The risk is that AI becomes another dashboard, another alert, another thing to manage. That’ s not progress. AI should eliminate operational friction before employees notice it.
Damian: Organisations need to design AI into the flow of work, not just bolt it on. If AI only creates more prompts, dashboards or notifications, employees will quite rightly see it as another process to manage.
The focus should be on governed action. That means AI has the right context, clear permissions and rules for when it can act, when it should recommend and when it needs to escalate to a person. That is what cuts through the operational noise: people are not left checking every output or working out who owns the next step. The data backs this up.
Our AI Maturity Index 2026 research shows that, across EMEA, the organisations seeing the strongest returns from AI are also the ones with the most mature governance, data management and risk controls. They are not moving faster despite governance, they are moving faster because governance gives AI a safe way to get work done.
Louise: Businesses should start by asking two fundamental questions: Where is AI genuinely removing friction? And is it giving people their time back? If the answer to either question is no, then it’ s likely not solving the right problem.
60 October 2026