Business professionals + GenAI: saving time and increasing performance

Welcome back!

Last week, we shared career development tips from Tony Francis, a Senior Program Manager and data analytics expert at Google. There, Francis shared insights he gleaned from his own professional journey, which saw him go from a finance and accounting major with no data analytics experience to becoming a data professional at one of the leading tech companies in the world. 

This week, we’re revisiting our AI themes. Previously, we explored how you can use practical AI skills at work regardless of your role. These skills are becoming increasingly important for career development—in the past year, there's been a 21x increase in job postings mentioning GenAI on LinkedIn, according to a LinkedIn report. Another report from Microsoft and LinkedIn found that more than 60% of leaders only want to hire candidates with AI skills. Inspired by these findings, we’ve curated a selection of courses designed to strengthen your workplace GenAI skills.

We’re also zooming into how AI is changing specific careers. We’ve already discussed AI in product management and cybersecurity. Today, we’re focusing on GenAI in business management.

How business managers are using GenAI 

Business managers work toward optimization within a specific line of business, generally focusing on operations management, people management, or both. Some business management job titles include business development manager, marketing manager, sales manager, financial manager, and human resources manager. 

Despite their different titles and areas of expertise, business managers tend to be responsible for doing things like creating work schedules, setting goals and objectives, developing strategies to improve performance, monitoring budgets, and hiring, training, and mentoring staff. 

Here are some ways GenAI can make these tasks easier:

• Boost decision-making: When AI is paired with real-time data analytics, it has the potential to provide both managers and employees with on-the-fly guidance based on the most up-to-date information. This can help teams (and leadership) maximize their impact. 
• Automate repetitive tasks: GenAI's core benefit is its ability to automate repetitive tasks that can take up a lot of time, such as creating staff schedules, building budgets, and monitoring a team’s performance based on their achievement of certain measurable objectives. This could free up a manager’s time to focus on resolving more complex issues that their team faces. 
• Reduce operational costs and boost revenue: When AI is used effectively, it can potentially reduce spending and boost revenue by lowering labor costs, streamlining work processes, increasing productivity, and equipping teams with faster, data-driven insights. These combined can have a sizable impact on a team’s overall performance and an organization’s bottom line. 

These are just some of the ways that business managers are using GenAI across industries. As AI develops further, there will undoubtedly be many other ways that managers can use the technology to help them—and their teams—do the best job they can. 

Keep learning about AI in business management

For a broad overview of AI applications in business, try the University of Pennsylvania’s AI For Business Specialization. Over four courses, you’ll learn the fundamentals of AI in data science, marketing and finance, people management, and strategy.

To learn how to develop AI solutions, explore IBM’s AI Foundations for Business Specialization. This program provides a foundational understanding of AI technology and how to deploy it for business purposes. 

To create your AI business strategy, check out the Navigating Generative AI for Leaders Specialization, led by Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO. Here, you’ll get hands-on guidance as you use GenAI tools to identify opportunities to enhance your business processes with AI.

Finally, if you’re a business manager eager to build your team’s AI skills, consider Generative AI Academy. This comprehensive academy includes a range of programs that equip teams with the skills needed to use AI tools in the workplace. 

That’s all for this week. If you want us to cover how AI is changing your career path next, let us know in the comments!

Have a career question you’d like us to answer next? Share it below. And, as always, we welcome YOUR advice and experience in the comments.