With the speed at which work and technology have evolved in recent years, what changes and adjustments should companies and employees adapt to keep up with developments in collaboration and productivity?

The Business Manual spoke with Gibu Matthew, General Manager for Asia Pacific of multinational technology company Zoho Corporation for his insights.

What are the current trends in workplace collaboration?

Having the right collaboration tools is crucial for improving productivity, especially when employees are working in a hybrid manner.

BMI market research predicts that Philippine software sales will reach $95 million by 2024. Between 2020 and 2021, more people went online and began working with tech tools.  Which is why the right collaboration solutions at work, integrating email, voice, text, online meetings, screen sharing, and intranet, all contribute to ensuring the right environment for business continuity.

What does the future of content collaboration involve?

The previous methods of manually sending messages or emails between people to collaborate on a document are over. Now, it’s about real-time collaboration: the ability to meet, greet, see virtually, share screens, and write content together.

This is especially important in a business context, where three to 15 stakeholders need to work together to deliver a document on time. When you have tight timelines, real-time collaboration is critical.  In the Philippines, businesses serve customers across different time zones, making it crucial to deliver services promptly. It’s even more critical to ensure collaboration solutions are present within various departments in the organization to get work done.

Businesses need to consciously ensure they aren’t relying on incorrect results simply because the technology says so. It’s essential to apply human experience to verify that the technology provides the right output. These considerations are crucial as AI is being rolled out into organizations.

Gibu Matthew, Zoho Corporation

What role does AI play in this?

AI in general isn’t new, though Gen AI is more recent. For AI to be effective, you need a foundation of digitalization and various supporting technologies. In content creation and collaboration, everyone needs some form of Gen AI, like ChatGPT, for instance.

Zoho solutions can provide these tools contextually at work. For example, if you’re writing a long paragraph for an article and need to rephrase it in a casual tone, you can repurpose a specific section directly within your tool without changing or bringing the content back.  Zia, Zoho’s AI-powered assistant, simplifies tasks like retrieving customer data, rephrasing content, or writing natural language queries for complex analytics systems. Zoho offers a suite of apps that bring AI capabilities across various functions.

There’s no doubt that AI can make things simpler, but what do you think are the dangers it can pose?

We’ve seen numerous real-world examples, such as fake videos from the recent Ukraine-Russia war. In a business context, AI can exhibit bias unless carefully implemented for business users. This bias affects how decisions are made. In AI tech, we call it “hallucination.” Many AI results are based on a high probability of being correct, but they’re never 100% accurate, leading to potential inaccuracies.

Businesses need to consciously ensure they aren’t relying on incorrect results simply because the technology says so. It’s essential to apply human experience to verify that the technology provides the right output. These considerations are crucial as AI is being rolled out into organizations.

So you still need humans to check the work output of AI programs?

Yes, for checks and balances. We definitely don’t see AI replacing jobs but rather aiding and empowering existing employees, making them more powerful and effective.

With the entry of AI, how do you think should people be reskilling or upskilling? What job or functions do you see it replacing? How should people prepare for that?

Many repetitive tasks may be reduced as customers increasingly seek answers through chatbots. We’re witnessing chatbots becoming more human-like across industries.

The turnaround time for responses is likely to decrease significantly. In the past, you have to wait for 72 hours or five business days to get a response. you may get responses a lot faster now.

While simple questions may be reduced, customer service agents may face more complex inquiries, necessitating upskilling. We must familiarize ourselves thoroughly with our tools and business products to better understand customer needs and effectively address their queries.  That’s how the trend of AI is going to be adopted. This trend indicates a shift towards higher-level capabilities from knowledge workers, enhancing customer service. As customer expectations rise, businesses must align their organizations to deliver superior services, requiring experienced employees to optimize this technology for excellent customer experiences.

Do you have figures or statistics on how much businesses can save for instance in customer service if they use AI versus actual human agents?

Generally, there’s often discussion about job losses when AI comes in the picture. However, what’s crucial is how businesses respond to this technology and how employees collaborate with the business to navigate it.  Today, established companies may not reduce their workforce, but those failing to adopt the right technology risk falling behind. As employees, it’s essential to align with companies, embracing creativity and adapting to technological advancements rather than fearing them.

How would you rate the Philippines in AI readiness?

The understanding of how technology needs to be adjusted or embraced is essential. SMEs constitute a significant portion of the Philippine business landscape, providing numerous jobs, alongside large organizations. This creates a diverse economic environment.

The Philippines holds a demographic advantage and possesses strong capabilities to reach broader or even global audiences, making it uniquely positioned. By embracing additional capabilities, it can deliver exceptional experiences to customers and organizations globally.

What role would Zoho play in this picture? How would you compete in the Philippine market?

We too started as a startup, and now we’ve grown to 15,000 employees, headquartered in India and operating in 150 countries. Our solutions are globally used by our own employees, making them a great default choice.  When organizations use Zoho solutions, they seamlessly integrate with our tools. When we introduce solutions in the Philippines, organizations may find them beneficial from day one.  The ability to provide cloud-based solutions also eliminate the need for an IT team to maintain them. Anyone can sign up for a free trial without a credit card, gaining access to all features.