AI, innovation, and humanity: keeping human perspective at the core of creativity and insight

That is a question we're tackling with a skilled duo: Marko Setälä has served as a Senior Enterprise Coach at Nitor for nearly seven years, while Niina Tuikka is one of the founders of strategic AI company Renessai.

Beyond the ecosystem between Nitor and Renessai, Setälä and Tuikka also share a passion for developing corporate culture and cultivating strategic thinking – core-value elements in aiding companies and their employees achieve better results through smoother day-to-day operations.

The AI traffic jam

While some companies have embraced AI with a confident grasp, many still feel overly pressured to accelerate AI adoption. Concerns such as perceived low-quality data often lead to trepidation. In other words, we’re still dealing with a bit of a traffic jam: some are too keen to hit the gas, while others keep their foot planted on the brake. The traffic lights of synergy are still under construction.

Another shared trait between Nitor and Renessai is practical thinking. This usually has its foundations laid beyond technical aspects, namely within human elements: communication and understanding. Tuikka sums this up nicely while shedding light on her client work philosophy:

"Especially with AI, something I try to offer our clients is a way to replace their fear of missing out with a sense of calm over the fact that some things in the AI space can be safely ignored, at least for the time being. You just need to understand what those things are and why they can be left on the back burner. This differentiation begins by identifying the client’s key business problems and challenges, and then focusing on those. Systematic problem-solving over haphazard scrambling."

The new division of labor

Setälä and Tuikka are prime examples of practical AI usage. AI tools have been gradually integrated into their daily work, and now assist them in areas such as processing large datasets and text documents, taking meeting notes, aiding content creation, and even subbing in as sparring partners to unlock inspiration. Essentially, AI carries a piece of the load of small everyday tasks that can amount to a significant workload when combined.

Tuikka refers to this as a new division of labor: in a best case scenario, AI gives people freedom to focus on tasks that require human capacity, removing some rotations of the grindstone from each working day. But according to our interviewees, AI’s role isn’t just to lighten the workload – it can also be significant in prioritising tasks.

Setälä believes strongly in AI’s potential especially during the discovery phase of product management – or what is referred to as product intelligence at Nitor. This is the time when the aim is to uncover an all-encompassing blueprint of the customer's needs, aspirations, and issues. A key goal for any business is to shorten the gap between production costs and revenue, and this is exactly where product intelligence comes into play.

"At Nitor, we've long been of the mind that companies must reframe their thinking from production orientation to goal orientation. That shift requires a focus on impact. If a product or application has enough impact to affect customer behavior, it adds significant value for the customer and their business. That’s what we mean by product intelligence – how to build services and products that customers will fall in love with," Setälä illustrates.

Product innovation remains a realm of human expertise

The discovery phase is critical to ensure cohesive product and service development. It is the stage where you seek understanding of what users and customers truly want and need. An essential component is to experiment broadly, fail fast, and most importantly to validate outcomes in a way that ensures the end product is of high quality and matches user needs. This is where Setälä sees AI as a true asset:

"We can generate countless experiments and validate product suitability at a staggering pace. AI also enables the analysis of vast data sets, which is key to turning raw data into insight. Fundamentally, this means AI can help companies achieve better customer understanding. That’s what this is all about at the core," Setälä explains.

Our experts concur that despite the great leaps AI has taken in recent years, humans will remain irreplaceable in the innovation equation. Customer-centricity is rooted in human behavior, and humans are inherently unpredictable. AI can enable the creation of hyper-personalised, experience-enhancing solutions, but those efforts are rooted in understanding. When a company's workforce is equipped with tools granting a better grasp on the user experience, we are at the heart of innovative technological work. That’s where products and services worthy of falling in love with are born.

"AI enables us to take huge leaps in quality, but the conversation around AI is still centred around automation and efficiency. Our message is that AI can be utilised to improve the customer experience and lead to better quality products. AI isn’t just about automating existing processes – it can help companies focus their efforts on areas where they matter the most," Tuikka adds.

AI's role should run from end to end

According to our interviewees, the most successful AI implementations are undertaken in companies where it is integrated throughout the entire process chain, end to end. Rather than focusing on partial optimisation, companies need to view their entire process as a target for development – from innovation and discovery all the way to market entry.

"Improvements must be systematic and holistic. Many companies still operate with suboptimal processes with sloppy digitalisation. When you layer AI on top of those, the results are exactly as shaky as they sound. Companies need to step back and take a long, hard look at what their core operations are. Then you will be primed to take note of how AI can enable a smoother run through the entire pipeline," Tuikka states.

First and foremost, this requires human expertise: reflection, experimentation, and innovation – from end to end.

Tuikka and Setälä hope that the new division of labour via AI-powered means will help companies create more meaningful and useful products and services for their customers. Every company wants to be customer-centric – AI makes that goal more attainable, efficiently and effectively.

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