AI and Humans: Better Together
2023 was the year of AI. ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney, Hugging Face - we’ve heard of all these tools. Generative AI, or Gen AI as we fondly refer to it, has put the power of AI into everyone’s hands. AI capabilities are now embedded into software tools but we’re just getting started.
Just recently, a bunch of ComplianceQuest product managers and developers were brainstorming on the role of AI and how it’d impact the world of Quality Management. During this brainstorming session, there was one phrase that stood out:
AI & HUMANS: WE’RE BETTER OFF TOGETHER
At ComplianceQuest, we understand this synergy profoundly. It’s at the core of how we’ve built the AI capabilities in all our products - QualityQuest, SafetyQuest, and ProductQuest.
The Role of AI, The Role of Humans: Clarity Matters
In one of our recent blogs titled ‘Task Automation & Better Decision Support with ComplianceQuest’s 7 AI Agents’, we spoke about the role of intelligent automation in driving efficiency and saving time for quality leaders.
In the blog, we explained the CQ.AI framework and how it was used to launch seven AI agents, your organization’s AI army that’ll supplement your quality team. The seven agents are:
- Complaints Agent
- Audit/Risk Agent
- Safety Agent
- Quality Agent
- Supplier Agent
- Decision Support Agent
- User Experience Agent
The first five AI Agents would specifically use “intelligent automation” capabilities to streamline tasks, eliminate mundane work for humans, and make it easy for people to focus on high-level work that will need human intelligence and context. The Decision Support Agent will enable semi-autonomous decision-making, presenting ideas and options in front of quality leaders. The User Experience agent will save time in terms of software/tool usage - making it easy to go from one step to another.
In this blog, we talk about how the combination of human and machine intelligence can be used to drive efficiencies into various quality management processes:
Risk Management
AI excels in identifying patterns and predicting risks by analyzing vast data sets, something human intelligence alone cannot achieve at the same scale. It can play a role in prioritizing which risks to tackle first - at least to an extent. It swiftly processes historical data, current trends, and potential risk factors, paving the way for preemptive actions in risk management. However, it's the human ability to contextualize and apply ethical considerations that truly maximize this capability.
Quality leaders will have to bring to the forefront their past experiences/learnings and collaborative capabilities to proactively address risks. This cannot be done by AI.
Audits and Inspections
During audits and inspections, AI tools can automate routine tasks like data collection and report generation. Audit findings can be segregated and categorized. This automation not only speeds up the process but also reduces errors.
The human role here is crucial in interpreting these reports, understanding nuances, and making judgments that no AI can.
Supplier Quality
AI algorithms can monitor and evaluate supplier performance continuously, flagging issues in real-time.
Humans, with their understanding of business relationships and strategic priorities, can take this information and make informed decisions to manage supplier relationships effectively.
Complaint Handling
While AI can efficiently categorize and prioritize complaints based on severity and impact, the human touch is vital in empathetically handling customer interactions and making judgment calls on complex issues that AI cannot comprehend fully.
CAPA and RCA
Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) greatly benefit from AI's ability to quickly analyze data for trends and potential causes of quality issues.
However, developing and implementing effective CAPA plans requires human insight, experience, and decision-making skills.
Management Review Process
AI tools can streamline the management review process by gathering and synthesizing relevant data for meetings.
The insights and strategic directions derived from this data rely heavily on human intelligence, experience, and intuition.
The Symbiosis of AI and Human Intelligence
In each of these quality management processes, the combination of AI and human intelligence is not just additive but multiplicative.
AI brings speed, efficiency, and the ability to handle vast quantities of data, while human intelligence provides context, ethical considerations, and complex decision-making abilities.
At ComplianceQuest, we recognize and harness this powerful synergy. Our modern EQMS Solution is designed to leverage the strengths of both AI and human intelligence, ensuring that quality leaders can save time, improve efficiency, and drive better quality performance. In the realm of quality management, AI and humans are indeed better together.
