With all of the excitement around artificial intelligence (AI) and its rapidly expanding capabilities comes the fear that it will replace people’s jobs. While that may be true in some cases, it’s missing an awful lot of context. Most importantly, it fails to take into consideration the distinction between handling tasks and making critical business decisions.

Start with AI’s core strengths

Let’s start by focusing on what AI is really, really good at: completing tasks. Computers have been automating tasks for a very long time, but AI takes it to another level entirely. Where legacy computers needed very specific inputs, and very specific coding, to arrive at very specific outcomes, AI is more flexible. It can take an input, compare it to previous inputs, learn from them, and produce an output based on the patterns it identifies. This is similar to how people arrive at decisions, hence the term “artificial intelligence.”

Removing the need to tell a computer program exactly what to do with any input that it might receive is a major paradigm shift in how we approach automation. With technology like RPA, it is prohibitively difficult to identify every possibility, and then write rules for each one of them. It also introduces the risk that a rule was coded incorrectly, producing an incorrect output and leading to costly errors

Unlike traditional task automation, AI learns

AI also learns very effectively from its experiences of successful past transactions and any feedback it receives. Not only does this make the technology easier to implement, it also introduces the concept of “confidence.” Confidence is an AI’s unique ability to check its own work. Because it learns from history, it can evaluate the quality of the patterns it builds and uses to arrive at a decision. Put simply, if it doesn’t have enough history to produce a highly confident output, it can bring that output to a user for validation.

When you, the user, provide feedback, you are also providing another data point for that pattern, allowing the AI to make better decisions. This feedback is often referred to as “training.” Think of it like a teammate who isn’t sure what to do next, so they ask a colleague or supervisor for help and learn from their feedback. 

But business decisions require people

However, it’s important to remember that while the AI behaves similarly to a human, there is no “human-like” mind behind that calculation. People will always be necessary to provide AI systems feedback and to make business decisions.

Business decisions are inherently different from tasks. Tasks are either done correctly or incorrectly. Business decisions are less black and white, with the possibility of multiple alternatives. A person’s role is to select the best of these, incorporating subtleties an AI might not understand.

How to partner with AI for maximum benefit

Here’s an example: An AI receives an invoice via email and begins to process it. It ingests the data, identifies the associated purchase order, and performs a three-way match. These are tasks, with a correct or incorrect result for each step. However, on this invoice, there is a price that is outside of the company’s tolerance. Now what?

The AI saved the finance team hours of work on the dozens of invoices that never needed to be touched. It pinpointed the one line where there was a challenge on a single invoice. But now someone on the team needs to be involved to decide whether to update the purchase order or push back on the supplier to change the billing price. Dozens of outside factors could influence the best decision in this scenario, and people are better suited to picking the best alternative.

Balancing AI tasks vs. human decisions

This is why people will always be needed to make business decisions when working with AI. And that’s a good thing. AI can do tasks more quickly and accurately than people can, but people can make business decisions that an AI can’t–and shouldn’t. It's all about balance.

When you use AI to automate a process in your business, focus it on the tasks. If that same automation recognizes when decisions are needed, identifies the person who needs to make that decision, and provides them with all the information available to help them make it, that’s the ideal. You get the best of both worlds. 

Businesses need people. AI can free them.

Fears of any new technological development are understandable–they’ve been a part of every human leap forward. What we’re finding today, however, is that people are increasingly using AI, whether they’ve been directed to or not, in order to be more productive.

The key lies in recognizing the difference between a task and a decision. Finance organizations that understand this distinction and implement a comprehensive AI strategy will thrive over their competitors–not by replacing their workforce, but by freeing people from routine tasks.

Providing a partnership between human and artificial intelligence means everyone wins. Businesses become more efficient, employees engage in more meaningful work, and customers receive better service. The future of work isn’t about AI versus humans–it’s about AI and humans together, each playing to their strengths.