As time has passed, more organizations are testing the potential of AI to augment job functions. AI tools may be readily available. For example, AI and machine learning may be built into newer versions of nonprofit accounting software, speeding approvals, automating reminders, and helping complete many tedious jobs faster.
Where once we feared that AI might take over the work of humans, we now see that people, working in tandem with AI-based platforms, can achieve much more together than singly. Here’s why human and AI collaboration can mean more efficient work for nonprofits.
AI Enhances Productivity and Efficiency
One of the best ways that people can partner with AI is to use this new technology to enhance productivity and efficiency. AI cannot (and should not) be expected to take over tasks entirely. But it can provide exceptional efficiency gains. Here are five ways in which your team can use AI to enhance their productivity.
Automation
AI can handle repetitive tasks, freeing up time for you to focus on more complex activities. For example, email filtering, scheduling, and data entry can be automated to reduce the workload. Within nonprofit accounting software, AI can automate the routing of approvals, running reports, and sending reminders, saving your team minutes that add up to hours of productivity gains per week.
Data Analysis
Another benefit of using AI is to leverage its power to analyze large amounts of data. It can find patterns and make suggestions based on these patterns. Your team then needs to review the suggestions and act on them according to their judgement. AI produces the reports, but people need to sift through its findings, confirm them, and then choose which ones to act on.
Predictive Capabilities
AI can predict outcomes based on historical data, helping you anticipate trends and make proactive decisions. This comes in handy with marketing and donor outreach, for example. AI can examine response patterns based on previous outreach campaigns and make suggestions to maximize your efforts for the best response.
Research Assistant
When you need to find facts and data, AI can scour the web more quickly than a person can search and examine the results. The AI-produced results can be refined and enhanced to find the research you need to support a presentation, pitch, or other activity. Be sure to check the citation link and confirm the accuracy of the data or statistics produced by AI searches. It sometimes makes mistakes analyzing the source material and matching it to the search query. A quick scan of the source document can help you confirm if the stats are accurate or not.
The AI – Human Partnership
AI isn’t a stand-alone tool, but rather a potential efficiency booster for the workplace. Humans, according to a Harvard Business Review article, must determine the value of the insights generated by AI and weigh their merits. As you can see from the list of suggested ways in which teams can use AI to improve productivity, it can enhance speed and efficiency, but people should always review its results and findings and confirm them.
Moving Forward: Understanding, Training, Governance
It is vitally important, however, that before you encourage staff to use AI-based platforms, you understand how they use, store, and serve data.
Public AI, for example, ingests everything from the web, and if you feed it new material, which becomes part of its massive data repository. This is why you should never enter anything proprietary into “free” tools like ChatGPT or Copilot.
Developing a set of guidelines for your team on how they may (or may not) use AI platforms, especially free or public-access AI, is essential, as well as training sessions to help them understand responsible AI use.
While the headlines may hype AI as a replacement for people, it’s really the partnership between AI and people that gets the best result. AI is a tool like any other. It’s how the tool is used that counts.
Welter Consulting
Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact us for more information.
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