IKEA just showed US the future of AI AND it isn't "REDUNDANCIES"
📢 IKEA this is one of the most interesting examples of AI adoption I've seen recently.
A recent article caught my attention.
IKEA introduced an AI chatbot called Billie, within its first year it handled almost half of all customer service enquiries. The technology worked, it was faster, available 24 hours a day and significantly cheaper than traditional support.
Many organisations would have followed a familiar path.
❌ Reduce headcount ❌ Cut costs ❌ Report efficiencies ❌ Move on
Instead, IKEA asked a different question.
💡 What can our people do that AI cannot?
The answer was interior design.
Rather than removing thousands of employees, IKEA retrained over 8,500 customer service staff into specialist customer facing roles. Those same people now help customers design living spaces, make purchasing decisions and create homes they love.
The result?
💰 An estimated $1.4 billion in additional revenue.
For me, this is one of the clearest examples of how AI should be applied.
❓ The Wrong Question
Too much of the conversation around AI starts with efficiency.
How many jobs can we automate?
How many people can we replace?
How much money can we save?
These are understandable questions, but they are rarely the most valuable ones.
AI is becoming exceptionally good at routine work.
🤖 Processing information 🤖 Summarising content 🤖 Answering common questions 🤖 Analysing data 🤖 Completing repetitive tasks
These activities are important, but they are not where most organisations create their greatest value.
The real value often sits in the moments that require:
❤️ Empathy 🔍 Curiosity ⚖️ Judgement 🤝 Human connection
Those are the moments customers remember.
🧠 AI As A Third Brain
At Scenic Mind, I often describe AI as a Third Brain.
Not a replacement for people.
An extension of people.
A Third Brain helps with:
🧠 Memory - Retrieving information instantly
💭 Reasoning - Exploring options and structuring thinking
⚡ Execution - Creating drafts, analysing data and accelerating delivery
🔄 Reflection - Challenging assumptions and improving decisions.
But it does not replace judgement.
It does not replace accountability.
And it certainly does not replace human connection.
The purpose of AI should be to remove friction from work so people can spend more time doing the things that matter most.
That is exactly what IKEA appears to have done.
They removed routine interactions and created space for deeper customer engagement.
🤝 The Most Valuable Part Of The Customer Journey Is Human
Many customer journeys contain moments where people want more than an answer.
They want reassurance.
They want confidence.
They want someone to understand what they are trying to achieve.
A chatbot can tell you the dimensions of a sofa.
A skilled consultant can understand why you are buying it.
🏡 The room.
👨👩👧 The family.
✨ The lifestyle.
🤔 The concerns.
🎯 The aspirations.
One interaction focuses on information, the other focuses on understanding.
That distinction matters.
Customers rarely build loyalty through transactions alone, they build loyalty through experience, and experiences are often created through human interaction.
🚀 The Future Is Not Human Or AI
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is treating this as a choice between people and technology.
The future is not human or AI. The future is human and AI.
The most successful organisations will use AI to automate routine activities whilst investing more heavily in uniquely human capabilities.
🌟 Relationship building
🌟 Consultative selling
🌟 Problem solving
🌟 Coaching
🌟 Creativity
🌟 Customer understanding
These are the areas where people create disproportionate value.
Interestingly, many of these skills have been undervalued for years because they are difficult to measure on a spreadsheet. Yet they are often the biggest drivers of customer loyalty and long term growth.
🎯 The New Opportunity For Businesses
The lesson from IKEA is not that AI saves money.
The lesson is that AI creates capacity.
The question leaders should be asking is not:
❌ "What jobs can AI replace?"
It should be:
✅ "What higher value work could our people do if AI removed the routine?"
That shift in thinking changes everything.
Instead of seeing AI as a redundancy programme, organisations can view it as a capability multiplier. A way to elevate people into more specialist, more meaningful and more valuable roles.
In many ways, this is exactly what technology has always done. It removes one type of work and creates another. The difference today is that we have a choice, we can use AI to build leaner organisations or we can use AI to build smarter, more human ones.
IKEA's decision suggests the latter may be the more profitable path and perhaps, the more sustainable one too.
💬 The organisations that win with AI won't be those that replace the most people.
They'll be the ones that create the most value from the people they already have.
What do you think? Is IKEA showing us the future of AI adoption, or is this the exception rather than the rule?
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #CustomerExperience #Leadership #IKEA #DigitalTransformation #Innovation #ProductManagement #HumanCentredAI #ScenicMind
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ikea-just-proved-ai-should-create-better-jobs-fewer-neil-terry-afnze/