In today’s fast-paced business environment, CIOs, CTOs, and other IT leaders face a mounting challenge—how to onboard and develop talent, maintain high productivity, and ensure employee satisfaction, all without incurring massive overhead costs. With increasing competition for top-tier talent and the rising expectations of tech-savvy workers, how do organizations meet these demands and stay agile?
Enter the Augmented Connected Workforce—a transformative solution that integrates AI, machine learning (ML), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and IoT to deliver an adaptable, highly productive workforce. By connecting employees with AI-powered digital mentors for your team, this solution ensures continuous learning, real-time task guidance, and data-driven career growth—all while improving collaboration across your organization.
Picture this: An employee, Jamie, is unsure about how to perform a task. Instead of spending hours looking for answers, Jamie turns to their AI-powered digital mentor, “Quinn,” for step-by-step guidance. Instantly, Quinn provides task-specific instructions, diagrams, and product details, while offering deeper insights into business processes and customer value. This instant access to knowledge and best practices ensures that Jamie not only completes the task efficiently but grows in their role, too.
In another example, a grocery customer asks the produce clerk, Sam, about a unique fruit — monkey fruit. Sam doesn’t really know much about monkey fruit and can’t offer much information. But with Quinn, Sam can quickly and patiently explain to the customer where it originates, what it tastes like, and almost anything more the customer would want to know. The customer now wants to buy it! Without Quinn, the customer is hesitant to try it… a lost sale.
How It Is Different
The Augmented Connected Workforce is a vertical AI capability. Vertical AI is a bit different from the large language models (LLM) we’ve begun to love. This is a more precise capability within your particular domain, utilizing curated and grounded data that is tailored and unique to your domain, your organization, and your team. While still maintaining that conversational appeal and value of a generative AI LLM, it is made exponentially valuable to your team by information that is particular to your employee’s job execution, training, and growth.
What other kind of data would it use? Its level of wisdom is based upon any information you wish to give it access to increase the value of your teammate’s knowledge. This would include organizational best practices, organizational policies, product knowledge, task knowledge, historical knowledge bases, and the list goes on. Historical knowledge transfer is no longer enough because it’s too cumbersome or too costly in people time.
Why Leaders Should Care
For leaders, the Augmented Connected Workforce offers a unique opportunity to enhance employee performance while delivering measurable business outcomes. In fact, according to Gartner, by 2027, 25% of CIOs are expected to implement augmented-connected workforce initiatives.
Here’s why it matters:
- Enhanced Employee Onboarding & Development: Accelerate time to productivity with personalized, AI-driven training that scales across your workforce—at a fraction of the cost.
- Increased Productivity and Efficiency: Real-time, task-specific guidance improves decision-making and execution speed, especially in complex or highly regulated industries.
- Data-Driven Career Growth: AI tracks employee performance and makes tailored career recommendations, ensuring employees stay engaged and on track for long-term success.
- Reduced Training and Support Costs: Minimize the need for human-led training sessions, while ensuring quality and consistency across departments.
- Seamless Collaboration: Break down silos with connected tools that enhance communication and collaboration across teams and functions.
The McLean Forrester Advantage
At McLean Forrester, we’re pioneering the future of work through our Augmented Connected Workforce solutions. Leveraging advanced AI and machine learning capabilities, we help IT leaders not only elevate their workforce but transform the way they do business-boosting productivity, efficiency, and employee engagement. Our approach is designed to align your workforce with modern business demands, so you stay competitive in today’s digital economy.
Ready to Transform Your Workforce?
Ready to see how an Augmented Connected Workforce can revolutionize your organization? Schedule a personalized, free consultation with our team of experts today. Contact us at [email protected] or visit our website at mcleanforrester.com to learn more.
