Partnerships Manager at ALX Enterprise, Edward Akane, said the Ghanaian workforce must move beyond simply understanding artificial intelligence (AI) and start using the technology to improve productivity.

According to Mr Akane, the rapid pace of technological development means businesses and workers cannot afford to remain at the level of simply knowing about new AI tools and platforms.

He said the focus should instead be on how workers and organisations can apply the technology to improve the way they work and deliver better results.

Speaking on the Joy FM Super Morning Show on Monday, September 14, Mr Akane was asked what he expected Ghana's workforce to look like in the next five years and the role ALX Enterprise could play in helping organisations become AI-ready.

He said predicting exactly what the workplace would look like in five years was difficult because of the speed at which technology was changing.

“It's difficult to look five years into the future or predict what five years into the future would look like,” he said.

Mr Akane said that while businesses could make assumptions about the future, developments in technology, particularly AI, were happening so quickly that even predicting changes in the next few months could be difficult.

“We can have some assumptions because the pace of technology is moving very fast, not just AI but technology in itself,” he said.

He explained that as technology changes, businesses and workers must also change the way they operate and acquire new skills to keep up.

“As technology evolves, the world of work needs to also evolve with it,” he said.

“Looking five years ahead would just be assumptions, even three months from now, because there are a lot of AI tools or technology platforms, AI tools that are coming up, and skills need to be learned to match up to this.”

He said this distinction would be important for both workers and businesses as AI becomes increasingly integrated into the workplace.

Mr Akane urged business leaders to shift the conversation from simply training employees to know about various AI platforms to finding practical ways of using those tools to improve business performance.

He said organisations should be asking how AI can be integrated into their operations to make employees more productive and improve overall efficiency.

“For me, five years from now, for businesses, for leaders listening to this conversation, it's not just about your staff knowing about all the technology or all the platforms."

“But it's a conversation of how I leverage these platforms or these tools to improve the productivity of the business,” he said.