Durban: CAG Executive Question of the Week
If an AI system can analyse the spreadsheet, prepare the report, draft the email and even continue working after your employee has logged off, who in your organisation is responsible for checking that the work is correct?
Who should read this?
CEOs, business owners, Finance Managers, HR Directors, Operations Managers, project managers and anyone responsible for introducing AI into everyday business processes.
The Work May Be Faster. But Is It Right?
Imagine a Finance Manager preparing the monthly management report.
Previously, someone extracted the data, checked the spreadsheet, analysed the numbers, wrote the commentary and prepared the presentation.
It took hours.
Now AI can increasingly assist with several of those steps. Microsoft Copilot can already create and edit Excel workbooks, analyse information, draft documents and presentations, while the latest generation of Copilot is moving towards more delegated and autonomous work.
The productivity opportunity is significant.
But there is another question executives should be asking:
Who checks the work?
The faster AI becomes at producing business outputs, the more important this question becomes.
AI Is Moving Beyond Answering Questions
For the past few years, many employees have used tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot primarily as assistants.
Ask a question. Draft an email. Summarise a document. Explain a formula.
That model is changing.
AI is increasingly able to perform multi-step tasks, edit business documents, analyse data, build workflows and carry work forward with less continuous human involvement.
That does not mean businesses should avoid AI.
It means businesses need to become better at deciding where AI should be used, what it should be allowed to do and how its work will be validated.
The Real Risk May Be the Business Process
Before asking whether AI can automate a task, executives should ask a more fundamental question:
Do we understand the process we are giving AI?
If five departments use different spreadsheets, employees duplicate information, approval processes are unclear and nobody agrees which dataset is authoritative, adding AI does not necessarily solve the problem.
- It may simply accelerate it.
- A poor business process performed faster is still a poor business process.
- This is why AI adoption should begin with understanding the work.
- Where does the information originate?
- Who changes it?
- Where is time being lost?
- Which steps genuinely require human judgement?
- Which repetitive tasks could be improved or automated?
- And, critically, what is the source against which the final result will be checked?
Better AI Requires Stronger Workplace Skills
There is another misconception worth challenging.
As AI becomes better at Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 applications, employees do not suddenly need fewer workplace skills.
- In many situations, they need stronger ones.
- If Copilot creates an Excel analysis, somebody still needs to understand the source data, formulas, assumptions and expected result.
- If ChatGPT drafts a proposal, somebody needs sufficient business knowledge to recognise when the argument is weak or a fact is incorrect.
- If AI summarises a management report, somebody must determine whether the conclusion makes commercial sense.
- The employee’s role is gradually shifting from simply producing the work towards also directing, reviewing and validating the work.
- That is a very different skill.
Human Validation Is Becoming More Important
Interestingly, the technology itself is beginning to reflect this requirement.
Microsoft’s recent Copilot developments in Excel make it easier for users to navigate directly to changes Copilot has made in a workbook and review those changes.
That matters.
The future of workplace AI should not be:
AI produced it, therefore it must be right.
It should be:
Source Data ? Business Process ? Required Output ? AI Assistance ? Validate Against the Source
AI can accelerate the work.
It cannot remove accountability.
Arnold Muscat’s Comment
“I think businesses are going to discover that using AI is the easy part. The difficult part is knowing whether the answer is right.
We should not be training employees simply to prompt AI. We should be training them to understand the business process, work competently with the underlying tools and data, and then validate what AI produces.
The more work we delegate to AI, the more important human judgement becomes.”
— Arnold Muscat, Director, College Africa Group
A Question for Your Next Management Meeting
Instead of asking:
“How much more can we automate with AI?”
Try asking:
“If we automate this, how will we know the result is correct?”
That question changes the conversation.
It moves AI adoption away from technology experimentation and towards business processes, governance, workplace capability and measurable productivity.
That is where organisations are more likely to find sustainable business value.
Start With the Work, Not the AI
College Africa Group helps organisations examine how work is currently being performed before deciding where technology should be introduced.
Through Business Process Reviews, AI Workflow Discovery, AI Consulting, Advanced Microsoft Excel, Microsoft 365, ChatGPT for Business and Microsoft Copilot training, organisations can identify where time is being lost, strengthen employee capability and introduce AI where it can deliver practical business value.
If your organisation is considering greater use of AI, start with one business process.
Ask what happens today, where the problems are, what the correct output should look like and who will validate the result.
Then decide what AI should do.
Better Business Processes.
Stronger Workplace Skills.
Smarter AI.
Greater Business Productivity.
Contact College Africa Group to discuss an AI Workflow Discovery or practical AI adoption programme for your organisation.
Images:
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/@collegeafricaexcelvideotip1434
If AI Can Now Do the Work, Who Checks the Work?
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The Groote Schuur Minute (1990): In May 1990, historic talks took place at the Groote Schuur estate in Cape Town between the National Party government and the African National Congress (ANC). The resulting “Groote Schuur Minute” was broadcast globally as the official starting point of formal negotiations to end minority rule, signaling to the international community that a peaceful political transition was genuinely underway.
