• Motorola Solutions uses AI to help address delays in 911 emergency calls and improve response times.
• Its Vesta NXT software helps 911 call handlers gather and summarize data for quicker communication.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

Motorola Solutions is a Chicago-based provider of technology and communications solutions focused on public safety and enterprise security. It has about 21,000 employees worldwide.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

The National Emergency Number Association estimates that 240 million 911 calls are made in the US each year. But fragmented emergency-response systems across various agencies and organizations can lead to dangerous delays.

"You hope to never call 911, but when you do, it needs to work," Jehan Wickramasuriya, the corporate vice president of AI and platforms at Motorola Solutions, told Business Insider.

He added that call takers' jobs can be demanding and unpredictable, and they're often under intense pressure. "There can be a high level of stress if there's an active shooter or domestic disturbance," he said. "They're trying to keep a caller calm and simultaneously find out if they need medical help." Meanwhile, he said, callers may be "speaking so fast that it's difficult to understand and retain everything they say."

Pinpointing a caller's location adds a layer of complexity. Mobile 911 calls are typically routed based on cell-tower locations rather than the caller's actual position. This requires calls to be redirected, adding several seconds to response times.

"At the end of the day it's a data problem," Wickramasuriya said, "because a lot of information needs to get transmitted in each call."

Motorola Solutions is using AI to consolidate this data in a single platform.

Key staff and stakeholders

The company structures its AI research team around specialized AI domains, such as computer vision and speech and audio processing, rather than individual product lines.

Wickramasuriya said the core AI team consisted of about 50 scientists, developers, and engineers who collaborate closely with hundreds of product managers, designers, and user-experience specialists.

Motorola Solutions also works with various cloud and technology vendors on its AI-enabled products and services.

AI in action

In June, Motorola Solutions launched Vesta NXT, software designed to help 911 call handlers manage emergency calls. It brings data from various public-safety systems onto one platform, helping the handlers gather and summarize information.

The tool uses AI to surface details including the caller's location and, for callers who have opted to share their medical profile from their phone, any underlying health conditions. It can also suggest the best entrance to a building. "That's important information for first responders," Wickramasuriya said.

The software has translation and transcription capabilities, helping English speakers and non-English speakers communicate. AI also helps call handlers manage nonemergency calls — by streamlining the reporting of issues like abandoned cars or stolen property, call handlers can focus more on critical emergencies.

Most important, AI can improve the human element of emergency response. "AI is working in the background to help the call taker attend to the person on the other end of the line," Wickramasuriya said.

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Motorola Solutions says roughly 60% of 911 call centers in the US use its call-handling software. It's transitioning existing Vesta 911 users to its new system with the AI features.

The company says these AI tools are already translating millions of minutes of audio each month and have helped lighten emergency-call handlers' workloads partly by resolving nonemergency calls and connecting callers to other resources.

Lee County is the first Public Safety Answering Point, which is a call center that handles emergency calls and coordinates responses, to use the VESTA NXT. Motorola Solutions said administrators there found the AI-generated searchable text transcripts and real-time summaries of 911 calls that call handlers can share with dispatchers and first responders helped save time and alleviate stress for call handlers.

What's next?

Wickramasuriya said the company was focused on improving Vesta NXT.

He said the goal was to "expand the usefulness" of the software by integrating it more deeply into existing workflows, including by developing features that connect first responders directly with dispatchers and call takers.

Another aim, he said, is to help understaffed 911 call centers "understand their staffing needs and identify which call takers are handling high-stress situations and address stress and fatigue among call handlers."

As AI rapidly transforms workplaces, employees are on edge.

Roughly two years after ChatGPT's release sparked widespread interest in generative AI, it's becoming clear that most workers' jobs will fundamentally change — and some may disappear. An analysis by the International Monetary Fund published in January forecast that artificial intelligence would affect nearly 40% of jobs.

But the impact of AI on employment is complex and far-reaching. Some roles may become obsolete; others may be augmented or even created by AI. Workers are simultaneously experiencing anxiety, doubt, and excitement. What new skills will I need to develop? How can I stay relevant? And importantly, is my organization prepared for this AI-driven future?

Whether employees can trust their organization's leaders to navigate these opportunities is a pivotal question, said Brian Solis, the head of global innovation at ServiceNow, a cloud-based automation platform, and author of the book "Mindshift: Transform Leadership, Drive Innovation, and Reshape the Future." He said that while many executives recognize AI's promise in increasing efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, they often fail to grasp the technology's profound potential.

"Leaders talk about the new normal or the next normal, but then they natively snap back to business as usual," Solis said. "It's the leaders who explore and ask: 'What if? Who will unlock entirely new ways of working?'"

Workers themselves have a responsibility to learn and grow, he added. They need to experiment with new technologies both in and outside work and challenge themselves to push beyond their comfort zones. "You need to literally rewire your brain," he said. "If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're on the wrong side of innovation."

'Workers need to be proactive'

Despite the breathless headlines about AI changing everything about the way we work, the reality is more mundane.

In a quarterly Gallup survey of American workers conducted in May, seven in 10 respondents said they never used AI in their jobs, and only one in 10 said they used it regularly. The survey used a random sample of 21,543 working adults. Among those who said they did use AI, the most common applications included generating ideas, consolidating information, and automating basic tasks.

Still, investment in AI continues to surge. A report from IDC predicted that global spending would reach $632 billion by 2028, more than double what it is now, covering AI apps, infrastructure, and related services.

Companies are investing in AI to avoid falling behind, said Mansour Javidan, an expert in digital transformation and the executive director of the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Arizona State's Thunderbird School of Global Management. "There's a lot of hype driven by board expectations, and that's led to a herd mentality to move quickly," he said. "No CEO is going to look bad by investing in AI right now."

Workers, meanwhile, are caught between uncertainty and anticipation. "There's a disconnect," Javidan said. "At the highest levels of the organization, there's a lot of excitement about AI. But among lower- and midlevel employees, there's a good deal of anxiety and ambiguity because there's no clear path."

But "workers mustn't rely on senior executives and hope things will turn out rosy," he said.

Javidan advises employees to seize development opportunities within their organizations and seek out online courses. Many top universities, including MIT and Stanford, provide free classes and workshops to help people build their skills. Grassroots and community-based learning groups, such as Women Defining AI, can be valuable resources.

"Workers need to be proactive and educate themselves," he said.

AI as a strategic collaborator

Beyond formal training and coursework, getting comfortable with AI requires a fundamental mindset shift, experts say.

"We were born with skills like curiosity, wonder, and imagination, but we often unlearned these in schools," Solis said. "The aim with AI should not be to generate expected answers or reinforce existing thinking but to challenge our conventions."

Solis said he uses AI as a tool for perspective taking, asking it to generate responses from the personas of the Apple founder Steve Jobs and Walt Disney. This approach helps him identify blind spots, explore alternative viewpoints, and seek inspiration. "They're my personal coaches," he said.

Molly Sands, the head of the teamwork lab at the software company Atlassian, which studies teamwork in the age of AI and distributed work, recommends viewing AI as a creative partner, not just a task-completion machine. "The people who are saving the most time and seeing the biggest benefits are those who see AI as a strategic collaborator," she said.

This involves engaging with AI through dynamic, iterative conversations — much like working with a team of experts, she said. A new study by researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management backed this up, finding that human-AI teams showed the most promise in creative tasks like generating content and imagery and translating software code.

"A lot of people use it for one or two use cases, but the growth we're going to see in the next year or two is the people who think about it more ubiquitously," Sands said. "Agents will be a key driver of this."

Her team at Atlassian, for example, has developed a custom agent designed to help employees write more clearly. Essentially, she said, workers "word-vomit" into the agent with information about their audience, context, and key details. The agent then offers up a tailored draft in the worker's voice.

"Our workdays are consumed by writing emails, creating slide decks, and other routine tasks," Sands said. "If AI can take on some of this load — freeing us up for creative thinking and solving meaty problems — the better off we'll be."

The value of soft skills

Learning how to work with AI is imperative for most workers, but it's important to recognize that human skills remain essential.

After all, said Hakan Ozcelik, a professor of management at California State University, Sacramento, the value of human workers lies in their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional abilities. "There are all sorts of skills that AI doesn't have yet, and maybe never will," he said.

"Humans are inherently social beings, constantly interacting with customers, colleagues, competitors, and their physical environment," Ozcelik said. "These interpersonal skills are invaluable assets for any organization."

While AI can process information and perform repetitive functions with speed and accuracy, it lacks the soft skills necessary for effective communication and strategic decision-making. A report by Cornerstone, a skills-development platform, said that while generative-AI-related job postings had risen 411% since 2023, the demand for soft skills such as leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence outpaced digital skills by 2.4 times in North America and 2.9 times in Europe.

This is why Ozcelik advises employees to embark on what he calls "a process of professional soul-searching." Closely analyze your daily activities to determine your unique contributions and core competencies that cannot be outsourced, he said: "Dissect your work and look at what you offer your organization in a given day or a week."

Also, identify areas where AI could offer assistance. For example, teachers may realize that while AI can handle grading for grammar and syntax, they should focus on evaluating students' ideas and nurturing creativity. Similarly, healthcare professionals can leverage AI for administrative tasks or data analysis while dedicating more quality time to patients.

In an AI-driven world, the need for human skills will not change; instead, these skills will become even more vital as workers learn to collaborate effectively with technology, Ozcelik said.

"It's about what you contribute and the value you bring," he said.

• Many major companies are requiring employees to return to the office full or part-time.
• Business Insider compiled a running list of the companies calling employees back.
• The list includes companies like Starbucks, Amazon, and BlackRock.

In September, Amazon mandated corporate workers return to the office five days a week beginning January 2.

In December, Business Insider first reported that AT&T is following suit and expecting employees to be in the office 40 hours a week starting in the new year.

The two business giants are just one of the many companies calling their employees back to the office following the pandemic as COVID-19 restrictions have eased.

The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, told employees this week they would be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a memo obtained by Business Insider.

Other major employers, including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, have also abandoned the hybrid attendance policy they adopted during the pandemic and instead implemented full return-to-office mandates.

Several executives and leaders have said they believe productivity increases when workers are in the office together, while others hope to increase in-person collaboration. Even some CEOs who previously praised the flexibility of remote work have started backpedaling, pressuring workers to comply with RTO mandates with threats to track attendance or even fire employees who don't comply.

Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of major companies requiring employees to return to offices. Business Insider will update this list regularly.

Amazon

CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a September 16 memo that Amazon would be pulling the plug on remote work starting next year.

"We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID," Jassy said. "When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant."

The CEO cited easier employee collaboration and connection and said in-person work would strengthen the company's culture, echoing his February 2023 memo, which mandated employees spend at least three days a week in the office.

Not everyone agrees. Some Amazon employees have taken to an internal Slack channel to criticize the new RTO policy, Business Insider's Ashley Stewart first reported, with one staffer writing that it is "significantly more strict and out of its mind" than pre-Covid operations.

"This is not 'going back' to how it was before," they wrote. "It's just going backwards."

The critical reaction is reminiscent of employees' response to last year's surprise return-to-office rule. Thousands of Amazon workers joined a Slack channel to share their thoughts, with some even organizing to file a petition against the change.

Apple

In August 2022, Apple's senior leaders told workers they had to return to the office at least three days a week after previously requiring two days a week. CEO Tim Cook said the decision was meant to restore "in-person collaboration." Some employees fought back and issued a petition shortly after the announcement, arguing that staffers can do "exceptional work" from home.

Despite the pushback, Apple's hybrid work program launched the following month and is still in place.

AT&T

AT&T confirmed to Business Insider that it's requiring all office employees to work on-site five days a week starting in January.

The change follows about a year of AT&T accommodating a hybrid schedule in its widely publicized office push.

"The majority of our employees and leaders never stopped working on location for the full work week — including during the pandemic," a spokesperson for the telecom giant told BI.

AT&T told BI it's updating its facilities amid the policy change.

"As we continue to evolve our model, we are enhancing our facilities and workspaces, adapting our benefits programs, and incorporating best practices to ensure our employees are best equipped to serve our customers," the spokesperson added.

BlackRock

Last year, BlackRock mandated employees return to the office four days a week. The investment firm, which is headquartered in New York City, intended to bring employees into its then newly leased office space — which spans 1 million square feet across 15 floors, according to Hudson Yards.

In a May 2023 memo sent by the company's COO, Rob Goldstein, and the head of human resources, Caroline Heller, the execs wrote: "Career development happens in teaching moments between team members, and it is accelerated during market-moving moments, when we step up and get into the mix. All of this requires us to be together in the office."

Additionally, the memo notified staffers that the firm is giving them the opportunity to work remotely for two weeks during a time period that is relevant in their country, in an effort to offer "seasonal flexibility."

Chipotle

The fast-food chain announced last summer that corporate workers work in the office four days a week, Bloomberg reported. Chipotle had previously required workers to show up three days a week, according to the report.

Citigroup

Citigroup asked its 600 US workers, who were previously eligible to work remotely, to return to the office full-time, Bloomberg reported. In a memo released by the investment firm in May, the majority of staff are reportedly still able to work a hybrid schedule, with up to two days a week outside the office.

HSBC Holding Plc and Barclays Plc also followed suit, mandating workers to come into the office five days a week, according to the report.

Vaccinated Citigroup employees across the US were asked to return to the office for at least two days a week in March 2022, an internal memo obtained by Reuters said.

Dell

Dell told its sales staff to return to the office five days a week starting on September 30. Previously, the company let US employees pick between working remotely or following a hybrid schedule with about three days a week in the office.

September's sales-team mandate came with just a few days' notice, sending employees with kids into a hurry to find childcare, Business Insider reported.

Disney

In a January 2023 memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Bob Iger told workers that starting that March, any Disney staff member working "in a hybrid fashion" would need to return to Disney's offices four days a week.

In response, over 2,300 employees signed a petition asking Iger to reconsider the mandate.

"This policy will slow, or even reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss," signees wrote, according to The Washington Post.

Goldman Sachs

In March 2022, CEO David Solomon told Fortune that the company was asking employees to return to the office five days a week. Seven months later, he told CNBC that about 65% of staffers were working in the office.

However, some staff have failed to follow the policy a year into its implementation, causing senior managers to become frustrated and Goldman Sachs to further crack down on employees to return to the office full-time.

Google

In March 2022, Google employees in the San Francisco Bay Area and "several other US locations" were told to return to the office for at least three days a week starting the following month.

Last year, however, the company tightened RTO expectations, telling staff in an email that office attendance would factor into their performance reviews.

Google's Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi told workers in the memo that requests to work remotely full time will now be considered "by exception only."

Some employees expressed feeling "frustrated" with the new policy. One staffer previously told Business Insider, "We don't like being micromanaged like school kids."

IBM

IBM has made its feelings on in-person work strictly clear — telling managers to either come into offices or get out.

The company asked all its US managers to report to an office or client location at least three days a week, according to a January memo viewed by Bloomberg.

A source told the outlet that staff would have to live within 50 miles of an IBM office or client location. The memo reportedly told employees they had until August to complete their relocation arrangements, and those who were unable to comply with the new policy must "separate from IBM."

CEO Arvind Krishna previously told the news outlet that employees' careers could suffer if they work from home. He said that although he wasn't forcing his own staffers back to the office, he thought remote workers may struggle to get promotions.

JPMorgan

In April 2023, JPMorgan announced to employees in a memo that all managing directors must work in the office five days a week. The memo also reminded other workers of the current policy of working in-person a minimum of three days a week.

Despite some pushback from employees, CEO Jamie Dimon doubled down on the policy, saying disgruntled workers can choose to go elsewhere.

"I completely understand why someone doesn't want to commute an hour and a half every day, totally got it," he told The Economist. "Doesn't mean they have to have a job here either."

The company has also been collecting data on staff activity, including tracking attendance.

Meta

Meta updated its remote work policies in September 2023, requiring employees to head into the office three days a week.

It had also stopped offering remote work in new job listings. People familiar with the company previously told BI that hiring managers could no longer post new jobs that list the work location as "remote" or outside of an existing office.

The company doubled down on its RTO efforts in June of this year, telling workers that their attendance would be tracked daily and failure to comply could lead to termination.

However, some employees returning to the office said they were met with a lack of space and privacy, with one worker calling the mandate "a mess."

Redfin

In April last year, real estate company Redfin announced an updated return-to-office policy via a memo from CEO Glenn Kelman.

The memo noted that starting July 2023, Redfin would require "headquarters employees" who live within 20 miles of the company's Seattle, San Francisco, and Frisco offices to work from the office for a full day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Those who live beyond the 20-mile radius are required to visit the office in-person once a quarter for a day or more of meetings, the company said.

In order to hold employees accountable, the memo included a "no-exceptions" section, reading that "to determine your distance from an office, we'll use Google Maps, with the distance from your home address measured in miles driven over roads by car."

Salesforce

Salesforce told employees in an internal memo seen by The San Francisco Standard that the majority of workers have to be in an office four to five days a week as of October 1.

The new policy is mandated for select staff in sales, workplace services, data center engineering, and on-site support technicians, according to the memo.

Early last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revised the company's annual strategic plan, including return-to-office mandates, according to a draft shared in an internal Slack message viewed by Business Insider.

The updated draft return-to-office policy required nonremote employees to work three days a week in the office and employees in "non-remote" and "customer-facing" roles to work four days a week. Engineers must work from the office 10 days per quarter, down from 20 in the initial draft, which was updated based on employee feedback.

Snap

Snap implemented a new mandate in September 2023, requiring employees to work in an office at least four days a week. The change represented a shift from the company's former "remote first" policy, which allowed employees to work from home or elsewhere.

Employees previously told BI that some managers told them the company is able to track workers' WiFi connections to see who is complying.

Starbucks

In a January 2023 memo to corporate staffers, then-CEO Howard Schultz said employees within commuting distance would be required to return to the office at least three days a week.

Schultz said some staff had failed to "meet their minimum promise of one day a week" and also pointed out that Starbucks baristas didn't have the "privilege" of working from home. The executive had previously said he "pleaded" with workers to come back to the office.

Starbucks employees responded by signing an open letter protesting the company's return-to-office mandate.

In September, former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol took over as CEO of the coffee chain.

In October, the company threatened to fire staff if they did not comply with the RTO policy, Bloomberg first reported, citing an internal memo.

Beginning in January, the company plans to initiate a "standardized process" to hold workers accountable to the hybrid schedule at the team level, where consequences will cover "up to, and including, separation," according to the email obtained by Bloomberg.

Employees, however, may request exemptions due to physical or mental medical reasons.

Tesla

In June 2022, Tesla employees were notified of a mandatory return-to-office policy.

The email from Elon Musk included wording such as "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned," and noted that everyone at Tesla must work from the office at least 40 hours a week.

Musk, who has called remote work "morally wrong," nodded to his frequent presence at Tesla factories as the reason for the business' success. "If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt," he wrote in the email.

Ubisoft

In September, Ubisoft, the France-based maker of the popular "Assassin's Creed" and "Far Cry" video game series, ordered its staff worldwide to return to the office three days a week.

French workers at the video game maker went on strike on October 15 over the RTO mandate.

X

After buying X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, Musk told employees that not showing up to an office when they're able to was the same as a resignation.

Musk also told staffers in an email that remote work was no longer allowed and that employees were expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week unless given explicit approval to work elsewhere.

In 2023, X, then Twitter, National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint saying that X had illegally fired an employee who complained about Musk's RTO policy.

The complaint said that Yao Yue, a principal software engineer, criticized the mandate, tweeting, "don't resign, let him fire you." She also posted, "don't be fired. Seriously" in a company Slack channel.

Yue was then fired five days later and told it was due to violating an unspecified company policy.

Uber

In a memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees that beginning in April 2022, Uber staffers in 35 of the company's locations were required to return to the office at least half the time. He added that on other days, staffers were allowed to work remotely and that some could be entirely remote if they got clearance from their managers.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently said remote work took away some of Uber's "most frequent customers," adding that "there is an audience who kind of stopped using us as frequently as they used to."

Walmart

Along with slashing hundreds of jobs, Walmart also asked previously remote employees in the US to move to offices.

Staffers located in smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto are additionally being directed to the company's central hubs, including its headquarters in Arkansas or New Jersey, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The retail giant will still permit hybrid schedules as long as workers come in-person most of the time, according to the outlet.

The Washington Post

William Lewis, CEO and publisher of The Washington Post, told staffers in early November that they would be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a memo obtained by BI.

"I want that great office energy for us every day," Lewis wrote, referring to the energy in the office during election week. "I am reliably informed that is how it used to be here before Covid, and it's important we get this back."

All employees were expected to return to the office by June 2, 2025, while managers were expected to return by February 3, 2025.

After starting remote work in 2020, the Post previously required employees to return to the office three days a week in early 2022.

The announcement at the Post came shortly after Amazon's return-to-office mandate. The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and executive chairman.

Zoom

Zoom, the darling of remote work, said in 2022 that less than 2% of staffers work in person full time. However, last year, the video-calling company asked employees to return to the office.

Workers living within 50 miles of one of its offices were mandated to work there at least two days a week.

"We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom," a spokesperson previously said in a statement. "As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers."

• Marjorie Powell, AARP's CHRO, is a member of BI's Workforce Innovation board.
• Powell says creating a collaborative learning environment is key to helping employees adapt to AI.
• This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

As the chief human resources officer at AARP, Marjorie Powell devotes much of her professional energy to meeting the needs of the multigenerational workforce. These days, much of that involves navigating AI's impact to ensure every employee at the nonprofit is prepared for the technological changes shaping the workplace.

"Our goal in everything we do for our employees is to provide the resources, support, and capabilities they need to make good decisions within the company's guidelines," she said. "We take the same approach with AI."

Powell's mission extends beyond AARP's workforce. As an advocate for the 50-and-over demographic, she champions the adaptability and contributions of older workers in a tech-driven economy.

"There's an assumption that people over a certain age are not comfortable with technology, but what's overlooked is that many older people — particularly those at the end of the baby boomer generation — were at the forefront of this technological revolution," she said.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How did AARP handle the introduction of AI in its workforce?

We decided to use Copilot because we're already a Microsoft company. We got enough licenses to set up a working group with key people we thought would be super users. The idea was to experiment with AI tools and see how they fit into our workflows.

We wanted to learn and figure out what works and what doesn't. Then, we could make a decision about how we were going to roll it out to the company, since one, it's costly; and two, we wanted people to feel comfortable with it.

What were some of the outcomes of the working group, and how did those results shape the way AARP approached training and support?

We issued a policy, a generative AI use case approval process, and a mandatory training for all staff to complete to learn how to use gen AI in the workplace. The training focused on internal and external use and the types of information that can be shared, public versus private, and so on.

We encouraged our staff to 'Go out there and play with it.' We then surveyed them and asked, What are you using it for? What are some great use cases you've developed? How's it helping you enhance your productivity? How are you using this tool to further the AARP mission?

We also considered what existing structure we could use to encourage staff to use AI and explore the technology. We already had a structure in place called Communities of Practice — groups where employees learn and share. It's like an employee resource group (ERG), but focused on learning and development within industry, so we used this model to create an AI Community of Practice.

What are some of the 'great use cases' for AI for your HR team specifically?

We get a lot of calls and emails on simple things about AARP benefits and policies. People ask questions like: I'm having knee surgery next month. How do I sign up for FMLA? or Where do I find my W2? or I bought a Peloton. Is that eligible for the fitness credit? So we started building an HR chatbot to provide that kind of information. It's much easier for employees to ask the chatbot instead of overwhelming a team member with those queries.

We're currently piloting the chatbot with 300-400 frequently asked questions and answers preloaded. It directs employees to the right information without them having to dig and helps us understand what additional information we need to include.

Many employers are using AI tools in hiring, but there are concerns about potential bias. What's your perspective on this?

We use AI for sourcing candidates. All AARP recruiters are certified to conduct Boolean searches to increase the accuracy of identifying talent with specific skill sets in the marketplace.

But when it comes to screening and interviewing, we don't use AI. We find that the technology is still very biased, specifically when it comes to age. Until the technology matures enough to minimize bias, I don't believe it's a good idea to use it without that human component of judgement.

Speaking of age, what are your thoughts on ageism in the workplace today, especially from companies hesitant to hire older workers?

Companies don't want to be the kind of organization that isn't welcoming to talent, regardless of age. Due to the economy and the rising cost of healthcare, many people in the 50-plus community are re-entering the workforce.

Many in that age group have valuable skills and experience and are eager to return. They often say, 'I don't need to be in a leadership role. Been there, done that. I just want to help and be of use.' They also naturally take on mentorship roles, as people seek their guidance. By embracing this segment of the workforce, companies can gain huge value.

What do employers misunderstand about older workers and technology?

Baby boomers were at the forefront of the technology era, and they're more comfortable with technology than many people realize. In fact, they are among the largest consumers of technology products. Tech companies really need to pay attention to this demographic.

I look at myself — I'm about to turn 60 — and I was selling Commodore 64s when I was in high school. I've seen everything from floppy disks to CDs, to cassette tapes, to 8-tracks, to digital streaming and everything else. I've experienced all versions of technology, and I've adapted. I'm still willing to adapt, and I'm still learning.

This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have become the subject of a heated, politicized debate over the past few years.

Several major corporations, including John Deere, Microsoft, and Molson Coors, have made headlines recently for rolling back their DEI initiatives.

Meanwhile, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced it would no longer use the acronym in its communications and would not extend its Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit established in 2020 with a five-year, $100 million commitment to address racial disparities.

Even so, as we've reported in this series, many companies remain committed to the values of DEI — but are shifting their strategies for a new era. Whatever the motivation of the companies, it's clear that DEI is undergoing a period of change.

Business Insider asked its Workforce Innovation board to participate in a roundtable to discuss how DEI programs are evolving. We wanted to find out what structural changes are happening, how companies can continue to build trust with employees, and what role artificial intelligence is poised to play.

The consensus around the virtual table was that the focus of the DEI story is shifting to business outcomes and the skills needed to achieve them. "We can't do it the old way," Purvi Tailor, the vice president of human resources at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, said. "We have to have the conversation in a new way. It becomes much more about inclusion and changing mindsets and creating awareness about your own biases."

Skills-based hiring is one way companies are working to identify diverse candidates organically. "Let's focus on the skills that are required for the future of work and what we are looking for from leaders in our company," Maggie Hulce, the chief revenue officer at Indeed, said. "And then be more consistent in the application of holding that bar."

By homing in on the skills organizations need to succeed and how to use AI tools to help surface in-house talent, companies could move the DEI story away from conflicts and focus on its benefits.

"It dismisses this notion that you have to lower the bar if you want diversity in your organization," said Spring Lacy, the global head of talent acquisition and DEI at Verizon. "We've got lots of super smart, super skilled people of color, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQI community, who just aren't seen for all of the biases that you talked about. You don't have to lower the bar."

Roundtable participants included:

• Anant Adya, executive vice president, service offering head, and head of Americas Delivery, Infosys
• Lucrecia Borgonovo, chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer, Mastercard
• Chris Deri, president, Weber Shandwick Collective
• Maggie Hulce, chief revenue officer, Indeed
• Spring Lacy, vice president, chief talent acquisition and diversity officer, Verizon
• Purvi Tailor, vice president of human resources, Ferring Pharmaceuticals USA

Here are six key takeaways from the discussion.

Skills-based hiring, supercharged with AI tools, helps companies find 'hidden figures'

Skills-based hiring is a strategy that some companies are using to identify candidates and reduce bias in the hiring process. The approach focuses on the skills needed to fulfill the role, minimizing qualifications like college degrees or previous job titles.

With artificial intelligence, talent leaders can accelerate the hiring process and uncover strong candidates within their companies that they might have missed before.

Lacy, who was previously an HR leader at Prudential, said AI is empowering existing employees to showcase their abilities more effectively.

"When went to recruit internally, and we pulled people based on the skills profile and not based on proximity bias or any other bias, our slates were inherently more diverse," Lacy said.

The critical piece for companies is to figure out the best way to capture an accurate and comprehensive view of employees' skills.

Verizon uses the Workday HR platform and is piloting a program with its partner company, Censia, that uses an AI tool to help employees craft their profiles.

Lacy has seen how difficult it can be for employees to isolate their skills in ways that might help them be identified for new opportunities. "When we said to employees, 'Go build a skills profile,' the page was blank," she said. "It was really hard for people to get started." AI tools can pull information from a range of sources and serve up a framework that guides employees through the process.

Mastercard has launched an employee-skills initiative with the software company Gloat. "It has been a really great way to democratize access to opportunities for employees," said Lucrecia Borgonova, Mastercard's chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer.

The outcome for companies can be a more diverse talent pool from inside the house.

Lacy said Verizon is conscious of the potential for bias in the AI programs, but early indicators suggest that more individuals are being considered for roles than in the past.

"We are uncovering hidden figures in this organization because there are people who we don't know, because they are not well networked, they don't have sponsors," Lacy said. "If not for this technology, we wouldn't have known that they were there, to be able to lift them and perhaps provide them with other opportunities."

Leaning into the 'I' of DEI — inclusion

DEI programs have many aspects, including employer branding and attracting a diverse talent pool, screening and hiring, and compensation.

Inclusion relates to a person's workplace experience and their sense of belonging at an organization, which research suggests makes people want to join and stay at a company. Benefits are an essential part of that employee experience, and companies may want to think about how these packages reflect their values to staffers and prospects alike.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals introduced a program in 2022 that includes unlimited financial support for creating a family — through IVF, adoption, surrogacy, or birth — for all employees, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Ferring's Tailor said it is one way that the company emphasizes its approach to its entire workforce.

"We talk about more of the 'I' than we do about the 'D' and the 'E,'" Tailor said. "We do it to show the kind of culture and working environment that we want to have. It's all about inclusion and bringing your whole self to the workplace."

Linking AI tools with culture and leadership

As companies develop new hiring strategies, culture does not stand still.

"Inclusion and belonging are essential parts of the culture, the value proposition, and key to driving the outcomes of our business," said Mastercard's Borgonovo. "It's really important that we drive shared accountability across our 34,000 employees around the role that each of us has to collectively play in creating this culture of inclusion where everybody feels that they can belong."

Borgonovo said that Mastercard is exploring ways to leverage AI to help business leaders across the organization improve efficiency and be more intentional about DEI and other workforce goals.

"How do we enable people, leaders, from an automation or efficiency standpoint? How do we help them be more proactive?" she said. "How do we help them create more bandwidth by automating certain processes so then they have more time to coach and develop their teams."

She said the company is exploring how AI can be used to coach leaders to role-play and get feedback on how they engage with their teams. "AI can be your coach, your copilot, and help augment your leadership," she said.

Ditching the DEI silo

Indeed's Hulce said a lot of time goes into optimizing the company's structure. "How do you make it the norm that equity needs to be built into processes, period," she said.

It's not just about interviewing and hiring diverse candidates, but about leading teams through every opportunity and decision, including promotions, performance bonuses, and assignments.

"How do you measure that? How do have regular conversations with managers at different levels in the organization about the expectation that we will be looking at equity in all of these steps," Hulce said.

Indeed once had a DEI team that worked parallel to the HR function. But when the previous HR leader left the company, they decided to reorganize and embed the DEI discipline across the business, elevating the previous head of DEI to chief people officer.

Hulce said realigning DEI was essential to scaling goals, standards, and accountability across the company. "It's almost an impossible task to ask a separate group to influence everybody else unless it's built into core processes somehow," she said.

Infosys is also considering its optimal DEI structure. "We are slightly decentralized," Anant Adya, an executive vice president, said. The global company has a centralized corporate DEI team, with DEI councils at the individual industry units. Adya said the company will leverage AI tools to help measure effectiveness.

Hulce emphasized the need to regularly and consistently review management decisions. "It can't be just once a year," she said. "You evaluate, you check, and if there's a correction to be made, you say, 'OK, guys, something looks amiss.' The expectation is we will be following equitable processes."

Using AI to scrutinize hiring, while retaining the human touch

Adya said Infosys is using AI to analyze patterns in its hiring data.

"It is very important to look at and analyze the data based on how hiring patterns are being used and if there is any bias in the hiring process itself," he said.

AI will grow increasingly important in analyzing the efficacy of various recruitment sources. "A lot of times we see that employee referrals actually work the best," he said. "But that might not be true when it comes to specific DEI initiatives."

By enlisting AI tools to analyze online sources, university partnerships, and other talent alliances and platforms the company is using, Adya said it should be able to optimize its approach around specific goals.

But all the AI analysis in the world does not negate the need for the human touch. Adya said that sometimes there's a perception at the company that hiring is being done only to hit certain DEI benchmarks and that the process is too onerous.

Adya said that hosting a "clear dialogue" about the company's decision-making process around recruitment methodology has helped employees understand the company's rationale.

"It's always better to sit down and explain why this is critical for the unit and why it is important," he said. "Sometimes open dialogues, going back to the old school, not using AI or gen AI, but just sitting and talking and removing that uncertainty and lack of transparency helps a lot."

Leveraging AI-powered insights to change the DEI story

Proponents of DEI maintain that a diverse, inclusive workplace yields better business results, and there are studies that also support that view.

Opponents of DEI, said Chris Deri, the president of Weber Shandwick's corporate advisory business, tend to focus on the methodology of achieving workplace diversity, such as companies actively seeking women for leadership positions, seemingly at the expense of male candidates.

"That's what DEI opponents are focused on," Deri said. "Like, how do you pull together a candidate pool, like having women candidates somehow be seen to be at the front of the line."

Deri said that companies should work to shift the perspective to DEI outcomes and tangible business benefits — and should leverage artificial intelligence to surface insights that might not be obvious.

"AI can do that in a way that human knowledge management and analysis is not going to be able to do," Deri said. "We can use the power of AI to look across our enterprises' data and knowledge and start to collect the outputs and outcomes of the principles of applying DEI. "

Deri said that if a large language model can be trained on the outcomes, such as attracting new customers, creating new products, and building community trust, "that might be something that uses technology to help the storytelling about DEI. We really need to change the entire story now."

This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

When Wex, a payments platform based in Portland, Maine, set an ambitious goal to double its revenue, to $5 billion, within five years, it recognized that achieving this would require changes in its operational approach and strategic focus. In 2022 it created the role of chief transformation officer and tapped Kristy Kinney, who previously led the company's pandemic response, for the job.

Kinney's mandate touched every aspect of Wex's operations, including adopting generative artificial intelligence in call centers, standardizing project-management systems, and identifying new revenue streams. Wex says Kinney's led 230 initiatives, hit 2,300 project milestones, and worked with and advised more than 100 leaders across the organization.

"We were intentional about not just delivering outcomes," Kinney said, adding that a lot of the change "was about building a culture of always-on transformation in our workforce."

As companies across the US confront complex challenges that require overhauling strategies, reimagining business models, and adapting workforce dynamics, many are appointing chief transformation officers to drive these changes. Boston Consulting Group said it found that CTO hiring surged by more than 140% from 2019 to 2021, led by companies in consumer and industrial goods and financial institutions.

Alicia Pittman, the global people team chair at Boston Consulting Group, said the trend reflected a shift in how organizations manage change. She told BI these specialized leaders are appointed to head up specific cross-functional projects and eventually integrate their work into everyday operations. The role is often transitional.

"Their job, in my opinion, is to sort of put themselves out of a job," Pittman said.

Ravin Jesuthasan, a global leader for transformation services at the consulting firm Mercer who wrote the book "The Skills-Powered Organization," said that while this position was relatively new in the array of C-suite roles, it was emerging as "one of the most pivotal for navigating the future of work."

"It used to be that an organization would do a major transformation every eight or nine years or so, but today, due to the velocity and volatility of change, companies no longer have that luxury," he said. "They now need a dedicated leader whose job it is to look around corners, stress-test existing strategies, and figure out when to pivot if necessary."

So what exactly does a CTO do?

The C-suite has expanded over the past few decades and now brims with new titles.

The core figures, including the CEO, the chief operating officer, and the chief financial officer, focus on delivering quarterly results. Other positions center on functional areas like technology, human resources, and marketing, and strategic areas like employee engagement and sustainability.

Jesuthasan said that among these newer roles, the transformation officer stands out as forward-looking. They're tasked with preparing the organization for the future. "They help see what's coming and identify potential disruptions," he said.

In addition, he said, they must deeply understand strategy and its implications for the organizational structure. They need to be adept at connecting different areas of the business. "CTOs help the organization develop a mindset of perpetual reinvention," he said. "They have the curiosity and willingness to challenge the status quo."

He added that strong people skills are also critical for CTOs. They need to have credibility with other executives, the ability to run experiments and test new ideas, and the skills to execute effective change management while bringing employees along.

Being a chief transformation officer, Jesuthasan said, is akin to "building the train while you're driving it down the tracks."

Brandon Batt, the chief transformation officer at Quadient, a company focused on digital transformation, knows this all too well. Batt, who was appointed in 2019, helped orchestrate sweeping changes at Quadient, including streamlining the company's divisions and simplifying the workflows in various departments.

"At the end of the day, my function is here to be the support, the glue, and sometimes even the driver behind change that's needed in the business," he said.

Change is a process, of course. Can a CTO's transformation efforts ever truly be complete? "In today's dynamic landscape for technology companies, I am not sure we will ever say, 'Mission accomplished,'" Batt said.

"We just announced a new plan for 2030," he said. "It's demanding, but leaning into it is where the magic happens."

'Change is hard'

The demands of managing organizational transformation are great, especially when initiatives span disciplines and address issues such as technological advancements, industry shifts, and evolving customer trends.

"Change is hard, and it can burn people out," said Chengyi Lin, an affiliate professor of strategy at Insead who studies digital transformation.

Lin believes the CTO role should be viewed as transient, ideally lasting two to five years. "I say this with empathy and sympathy for the individual as well as for the organization," Lin added.

C-suite titles have an important "signaling function," he said. Appointing a CTO sends a message to workers and stakeholders that the organization is committed to change. Making the role permanent could dilute its significance and risk suggesting the company is in a constant state of flux rather than pursuing meaningful transformation.

Lin argued that concluding the role after a finite period doesn't mean the transformation is complete — "it means that it's eventually folded into business as usual."

He described this approach as critical for maintaining employee engagement. Gartner has found that the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes in 2022; in 2016, that number was two. It also found that workers' enthusiasm for supporting enterprise change dropped significantly over the same period.

Kinney recently wound down her role as chief transformation officer at Wex. The company is continuing to work toward its $5 billion revenue goal; revenue was $2.55 billion at the end of December last year. And Kinney has transitioned to a new position as SVP of health & benefits growth. This role involves integrating her transformation work into Wex's daily operations, what she refers to as "operational excellence."

"I used to joke that if I was in that job after two years, I ought to be fired," she said.