Almost!

If you’ve been following the doctor‘s deep dices in AI in Procurement () and AI in Sourcing () Today, Tomorrow, and the Day After over on Spend Matters Pro [membership required], you should be firmly aware that, in the true definition of the term, there is no AI in any enterprise software platform today. Period. In fact, what’s there isn’t even close.

You’ll also know we define AI today as assisted intelligence where AI helps you identify relevant information, trends, etc. much faster than you could on your own and augmented intelligence where AI supplements your intelligence with advanced algorithms and capabilities that allow you to make informed decisions many time faster than you could without the technology — and that even the most advanced platforms out there struggle to even deliver assisted intelligence. All the majority of platforms do is deliver RPA – robotic process automation, which is just a fancy way of saying they can automate complex workflows under a wide variety of conditions, provided somewhere along the line an expert has created enough rules and models for it to follow.

And if you’re willing to spend enough money, you too can buy a state of the art system that will tell you that people like to drink coffee in the morning and that if you have a lot of employees they will form a line to get it and they will waste a lot of time waiting for it if you don’t have a big enough coffee area and coffee pre-brewed and pre-poured. You know, the same thing any current or former Starbucks barrista would tell you for the price of a coffee.

And the doctor wishes he was joking. This was what he found in his twitter feed just before he had to stop everything and write this post!

Wow! How much did they spend on this software that documents basic process times and runs simple models to determine that some things take time and any action that reduces that time for multiple workers can save time and money? Hire any lean specialist to just walk around your operation for a day and you’ll get a hundred common sense recommendations like this.

the doctor thinks WeWork should say WeWereRippedOff!

Especially since the other “observation” was equally obvious and if they simply required people to book a room, log a count, and asked a secretary to review the logs for two weeks they’d learn in ten minutes that people prefer to work in smaller groups because smaller groups get things done!

I wonder if they are training these systems on Pigeon English? (At least we know the dangers that common from Pigeon droppings … )