Spark 8 – How to think more strategically: Collaborative Intelligence H+AI: Insights

Collaborative intelligence has two heartbeats: the human (H) and the machine (AI). Human + machine intelligence = H+AI. H+AI goes beyond the confines of simple teamwork, involving a blend of human intuition and machine capabilities. Woven together, in the right circumstances, human and machine intelligence produce thinking better than you or I could ever do alone…

By interweaving artificial intelligence, big data and human insight, H+AI offers an enhanced problem-solving capacity that neither machines nor humans can achieve individually. It’s like a symphony of cognitive diversity, where each individual – or machine – plays a unique part but aims for a unified, harmonious outcome. The key here is ‘integration’, and it fundamentally changes how we approach strategic challenges, transforming our organisations into learning ecosystems.

How to think more strategically: when to use AI

H+AI is ideal in complex data analysis situations, where AI can process vast amounts of information, providing insights for human strategists to interpret and build upon. It’s valuable in predictive modelling, where AI’s ability to identify patterns and trends complements human foresight and experience. It’s also crucial in decision-making processes involving large datasets, where AI can quickly provide options and humans can apply contextual understanding and ethical considerations. Furthermore, you should employ H+AI in innovation, where AI-generated possibilities can be refined and directed by human creativity and market understanding.

H+AI is evolving more quickly than human intelligence and while today it is best used in research, bulk analysis and synthesis, it won’t be this limited for much longer.

How to think more strategically: an example

Collaborative intelligence isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a transformative tool that can genuinely drive impact, as demonstrated by the FoodForward Foundation. The Foundation was grappling with food insecurity, a multifaceted issue that was both profoundly driven by system failures and overflowing with plentiful data sets. It needed an insightful approach. And that’s exactly where collaborative intelligence came into play.

The Foundation gathered a group of experts—from farmers to supply chain experts, from nutritionists to community leaders—to help them identify the system break points. This group also captured the value propositions for each stakeholder in each part of the system.

This work led to the development of ‘a design and a set of design principles’ for a new, more efficient and human-centric system that engaged everyone. But this design needed to be tested to see if could and would actually work. Data (such as supply chain data, consumption data, wastage data, etc.) was plentiful, but came in a variety of sources and formats. It was slow going to manually sort through this data lake. This is where AI shone.

The team were able to harness the power of AI to crunch through, sort and develop insights from the sea of data. With these insights, scenarios could be developed and again AI was able to help step in to run these scenarios against the data.

The result was a food distribution system that was not only more efficient, but also significantly more sustainable. Farmers supplied fresh enough produce and reduced waste, while supply chain experts implemented a last-mile delivery model to ensure food reached the communities and people most at risk. Nutritionists formulated balanced meal plans, and community leaders executed the distribution. The result was a forty-five per cent increase in the reach of food distribution and a twenty per cent decrease in food wastage within the first year.

But let’s not forget the most compelling statistic: a thirty per cent increase in community engagement. Why? Because everyone felt they had a stake in solving the problem. This is the power of collaborative intelligence. It’s not just a way to solve complex problems; it’s a strategy for engaging everyone in the solution.