MIT, Artificial Intelligence & the Power of People Analytics - An Interview with Ben Waber
Ben Waber
In an AI-driven world, finding ways to digest the mountains of data on human behavior and performance is essential. Companies have access to numerous data sets from employees including ID badge scans, emails, meeting assignments, and much more. To harness this information, however, insightful leaders will need to learn to interpret the data to make the best decisions for the company and for their employees.
In this interview, we discuss the power and potential of people analytics with one of the innovators in the industry. Ben Waber explains the innovative uses of AI-powered behavior analytics. He describes numerous creative ways the technology can be used to make impactful decisions for your company, the importance of ensuring employee privacy in data collection, and the need for emotional intelligence when leadership interprets the data. Ben also shares his thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence and people analytics.
Ben Waber is President and Co-Founder of Humanyze, a behavior analytics company. For over 15 years, Ben has studied, researched, and implemented new technology to better understand human behavior.
Topics Discussed in Part One: Growing up in Philadelphia and going to MIT, applying research methods to the real world, starting Humanyze, using analytics data to understand how teams work together, MIT Media lab research, how to use analytics to make changes in your company, performance management, ensuring privacy in analytics
Topics Discussed in Part Two: How analytics inform and create awareness of bias, the future of measuring performance management, using analytics for individual career development, the future of wearables at work, chip implants for employees, AI’s influence on leadership decision making, future of surveys, ethics in data collection, unusual findings using analytics, the future of AI, automation of jobs
People, Organizations, and Resources Mentioned: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MIT Media Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, Panasonic, HID, Kronos, Humanyze, Kai-Fu Lee, “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order”
You can find out more about Humanyze online at https://www.humanyze.com/
Learn more about people analytics with Ben Waber’s book, “People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work” https://www.amazon.com/People-Analytics-Technology-Transform-Business/dp/0133158314
“Companies fundamentally, for the vast majority... don’t care what you as an individual produce. [They] care about what the team, what the organization, produces. And so, the challenge is that I need to figure out how your behaviors and your work, attributes to that whole. That whole is now on longer and longer time-scales, we’re making more and more complex stuff. So, it gets even harder for me to see how your behavior today impacts that. But I think that what is going to start to happen is much more focused on that behavior.”
-Ben Waber on the future of behavior analytics.