Human8 empowers employees to collaborate with generative AI

Human8 has announced the launch of an employee AI prompt school supported by the introduction of a proprietary Square AI research assistant. 

Led by Chief Platform Officer, Annelies Verhaeghe, the global agency is embracing the AI revolution to supercharge humans.

"Just like with the internet and social media revolution, as an agency we have always embraced tech and innovation, investing in discovery to accelerate success," says Verhaeghe. 

"However, to safely and creatively experiment with AI, we first needed to overcome the data privacy obstacle."

In Asia Pacific, AI adoption has taken off in 2023 across various verticals and markets. According to an IDC report, a top adoption driver is improving employee productivity. 

Maz Amirahmadi, Human8  Managing Director, APAC, says, "The tool will enable our team of consultants to keep pace with the acceleration, and we are already seeing strong appetite among colleagues and clients to collaborate with AI."

OpenAI systems are designed to continually collect data to learn and improve, which obviously raises concerns about data ownership and the impact on confidential research data and PI information. 

Therefore, earlier this year, the global agency developed a proprietary AI research assistant, using the ChatGPT algorithm to conduct a series of experiments with real research data, putting generative AI to the test.

AI needs human data

"With our proprietary AI tech at hand, we defined a series of A/B experiments to gain a better understanding of the potential and implications of generative AI systems for our business and the industry at large," says Verhaeghe. 

"Our experiments were designed to explore well-known challenges related to AI data quality, data sampling and even data hallucination."

Generative AI systems are only as smart as the data on which they are trained, typically relying on older data. Human8 reports that their experiments demonstrate that applying generative AI as an analysis tool to thick data collected through primary research leads to significantly more actionable research results, compared to relying solely on open-source AI technologies.

AI needs human eyes

Verhaeghe also issues a word of caution. "AI in the hands of a person who doesn't know how to use it, is not truly artificial intelligence but rather artificial stupidity. 

"Effectively using AI requires mastering the art of asking the right questions, fully understanding clients needs and context, and prompting the system appropriately. This is where trained humans come into play," she says.

To address this, Human8 has launched an AI prompt school for its consultants, enabling the global workforce to successfully collaborate with artificial intelligence while ensuring data quality and diversity.

Enhancing the tech suite with a personal AI research assistant

Following their research-on-research journey, Human8 has now implemented its personal AI research assistant across its global business to bolster project efficiency. Harnessing the power of AI automation, the global consultancy envisions more efficient analysis of unstructured data, allowing more room for human interpretation and consultancy.

"We firmly believe that relying solely on AI algorithms trained on public internet data will not provide the necessary insights for companies to gain a competitive advantage," says Verhaeghe. 

"By engaging the right people in more versatile ways, we can gather diverse deep data. And when this is combined with consultants who thoroughly understand the clients business and know how to prompt AI systems effectively, fresh and actionable insights are generated. Just as humans need machines, machines also need humans."