The answer is that it depends. That’s also a joke between UX designers. But seriously, it depends on how you define AI-centric. For some companies, it’s about technology; for others, it’s about people or no people at all. This is a big concern for us UX designers, not because we feel our jobs are at risk but because the companies are less focused on real people (which risks our jobs).
So, we need to define it: AI-centric modeling and analytics is an emerging field that focuses on developing AI systems that can efficiently process and analyze large amounts of data. This approach involves using AI techniques like machine learning and deep learning to build models that can automatically extract insights and patterns from complex datasets.
When a company becomes “AI-centric,” it will use technology as a key part of its technical strategy to solve problems and improve its processes. And that’s awesome.
AI must be used to make our jobs and daily lives easier. The problem starts when companies take an AI-centric approach in other areas that do not need it. You probably have heard it: Someone is looking for an AI Artist for illustration and then proudly proclaiming their status when they’re not. They are trying to use AI to lower costs and not hire the right people.
There’s a difference between AI-centric and…
It’s important to understand the difference between being AI-centric and being AI-reliant. Being AI-centric means using technology to improve data processing, thereby making your employees’ jobs easier and focusing on being strategic and creative. On the other hand, being AI-reliant implies that the AI is doing the jobs, which is not the intended use of AI. If you buy an AI subscription and start making the prompts, trusting AI will do the job, you’re not being AI-centric.
It’s different from developers using AI to double-check regular expressions and expand them or to help them simplify the code rather than asking the AI to do all the jobs (you won’t even know if that is right). This can be problematic: you can’t guarantee the code will be safe, original, and well done. And that translates to every other area: graphic design, marketing, or sales.
Being AI-centric means involving technology in every company process (when relevant). It means improving processes, breaking molds, and changing mindsets; it means enhancing productivity via technology and improving employees’ quality of life in a labor environment. It doesn’t mean replacing employees because you have a subscription to an AI Tool.
So, to answer the question: Is AI-centric a good idea? Yes, it is when you know precisely what it is. And you can only be real AI-centric when you are People-Centric.
