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# AI as a tool to accelerate  smarter people operations
- URL: https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/ai-as-a-tool-for-smarter-people-operations/
- Published: 2026-09-10T11:46:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-10T11:46:47.000Z
- Description: AI has given us tools that are genuinely boosting our productivity in ways that simply didn't exist before. Here's how it helped IBM.
- Author: Julia Johnson
- Tags: AI, People operations, Articles

**Note:* This article is adapted from a talk delivered by Julia Johnson at a* [*People Alliance event*](https://www.peoplealliance.com/events/)*. At the time of this session, Julia was VP of Human Resources at IBM, which is reflected in the article. She is now SVP of Talent Management at Cognizant.*

---

## **Productivity is the heart of growth**

No matter what industry you're in, no matter what geography you operate in, every business leader wants growth. And whatever you're doing to get there, [productivity](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/from-ai-hype-to-people-outcomes/) sits at the heart of it.

We've come to understand that productivity is about a lot more than cost savings or efficiency for its own sake. It really means getting more out of less; lowering the [bottom line](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/hr-analytics-is-reshaping-workforce-planning/) so you can reinvest in the top line.

That's the lens we use when we look at investments: can they become self-funding, and can they drive real [growth](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/how-to-create-an-engaged-workforce-that-drives-growth/) and prosperity for the business?

So what has that looked like for us at IBM? AI has been one of the central reasons we've been able to transform. It's given us tools that are genuinely boosting our productivity in ways that simply didn't exist before.

Back in early 2023, our CEO, Arvind Krishna, set us a challenge: reshape IBM so we could become the most productive company in the world.

Since then, we've been transforming; changing how we operate, using an array of strategies with a strong emphasis on AI. Central to all of it is a principle I mentioned a moment ago: drinking our own champagne.

We test our technologies out on ourselves first. We call this our client zero approach.

Combined, these efforts have helped us deliver billions of dollars in productivity gains, and we're projected to reach four and a half billion very soon, and counting. 

With those billions in savings, we've been able to make substantial investments in innovation.

By infusing AI and automation into our own business processes, we've created simplified experiences that are transforming our whole business; from HR, where I sit, to IT, which works hand in glove with HR, all the way to our sales and procurement organizations.

There's still plenty of room to grow. We have 275,000 employees in more than 170 countries. By sharing our own [feedback](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/how-to-write-a-performance-review/) with our product teams and looking hard at the offerings we deliver to market, we're stress-testing everything and making sure it's enterprise-ready before it ever reaches a customer.

We use these solutions internally first, and then, in many cases, we make them commercially available. It's a process that never stops; we keep iterating, optimizing, refining, and improving, which in turn fuels more growth. And we're doing it faster and faster.

No one can afford to wait years for a return on investment anymore. The pace of business is intense, so we're executing in months, and sometimes even weeks. 

None of these lessons are unique to IBM, either: I suspect many of you are already living some version of this in your own businesses.

So I'd like to share how we've achieved this, and hopefully start a conversation about how you might bring your own company to new heights of [productivity](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/7-high-end-performance-strategies/).

[What is people operations? Everything you need to knowBy operating one to two quarters ahead, people ops connects people strategy with business strategy, enabling smarter decisions, more accurate forecasts, and more sustainable growth.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-ab007378-6d83-4470-83e7-aa925558d01d.png)People AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/What-is-people-operations-b02602da-b6e1-4355-b568-ebe9cfeff412.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/what-is-people-operations-everything-you-need-to-know/)

## **Where the billions actually came from**

So just how did we get to all those billions in savings? The number is really made up of a few components: business value, the time it took to realize the savings, operational savings, and cost avoidance.

Some of the tactics behind that will feel familiar. We reduced our real estate footprint, consolidated third-party software spending, and moved people from indirect roles into revenue-generating ones.

But a lot of our progress has come from strategic application of genuinely innovative technology, AI chief among it.

Here's the thing, though: you don't build a lasting AI advantage through random acts of AI, or by making tweaks around the edges. Your [technology](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/using-ai-to-build-healthier-cultures-and-stronger-companies/) strategy has to be aligned with your business strategy.

We had to challenge our own status quo and question everything we were doing. Essentially, we rethought how to work more simply at IBM. We eliminated operational complexity, simplified end-to-end workstreams, and automated manual tasks, but only in that order.

Before you apply any technology, you need to decide what you're going to stop doing, then simplify and redesign the workflow.

Only after that should you automate the manual tasks, because otherwise you're just [automating](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/should-ai-be-your-hr-assistant/) a bad process, and that will never lead to growth.

## **Building an execution framework that could move fast**

So how did we actually execute on all of this? I want to walk you through our overall framework, because for an undertaking this large, having the right structure to operationalize our productivity initiatives was essential.

Establishing a solid foundation is what let us move fast and with resilience.

The framework was both top-down and bottom-up. We set up a transformation steering committee with support from the highest levels of the company; our CEO and SVPs led the charge, stressing the need for cultural change and encouraging adoption.

At the same time, we needed our solutions to solve business problems that our employees and clients actually cared about. So we created a transformation project office, a [cross-functional](https://www.peoplealliance.com/your-framework-for-solving-organizational-challenges/) body focused on productivity and value realization.

Below that, a productivity discovery team did deep dives into opportunities, leveraging external benchmarking and co-creating new processes.

And then we pushed all of this out to the broader workforce through what we called productivity catalysts, inviting employees to participate in company-wide challenges so they could change their own work; eliminate, simplify, and automate.

Our goal throughout was always to augment the skills of our people. We often talk about "artificial intelligence," but I like to think of it as augmented intelligence. We want our people to be enabled by [technology](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/top-workforce-planning-tools/) to do higher-level work, and to save time by letting the technology help make certain decisions.

Generative AI has also let us move much faster. The advancements we've seen over the past eighteen months to two years have simply been game-changing.

If I had to boil it down to a formula, it would be guiding principles, plus strategic execution, multiplied by generative AI.

[Strategic workforce planning in the age of AIThe age of AI isn’t something happening to your workforce. It’s something you can actively shape. Here’s how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-2ba0bd94-3229-40fa-8566-c1890021e840.png)People AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/Copy-of-PA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--26--9a6e9ee0-9c64-4a35-a764-f933b91beb6c.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/strategic-workforce-planning-in-the-age-of-ai/)

## **Use cases from across the enterprise**

I want to walk you through a few use cases we've pulled from more than seventy WatsonX projects across a range of domains and functions.

One area where this shows up clearly is enterprise insights: enhanced data integration, governance, real-time insights, and improved [collaboration](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/fun-ways-to-boost-morale-at-work/).

We used IBM's AI-powered pricing analytics to analyze historical transactions alongside firmographics, market trends, inflation, and third-party data, and integrated that into our opportunity-to-quote and quote-to-cash [workflows](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/people-operations-vs-hr/).

That gave us real speed: we achieved more than 50% productivity gains using Watson Orchestrate and Watson AI.

When it comes to customer support, the technology is streamlining processes and helping employees access role-specific knowledge while providing round-the-clock self-service.

In one example, where we integrated AI into both the client and support professional experience, we delivered $165 million in operational savings annually; that's two times what our original business case projected.

We're also modernizing IT, focused on upgrading and optimizing our infrastructure, and that path toward $4.5 billion and counting now includes more than fifty different projects, each one helping us measure exactly where the improvements are coming from, whether that's cost efficiency or time saved.

We've created [AI assistants](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/should-ai-be-your-hr-assistant/) for generating code and for supporting performance management conversations.

On the sales side, our digital sales team spends roughly a million hours a year (the equivalent of 114 years) on prospecting alone, switching between five different business applications along the way.

We built an AI sales assistant for them, and it led to a fifty to 70% reduction in time spent on those tasks.

And then there's HR, which is close to home for me. Our transformation team collaborated with IBM to deliver a simplified, personalized, data-driven, self-service experience we call AskHR.

94% of our company-wide HR queries are now answered by AskHR, the digital agent, which frees our HR professionals to focus on more strategic work with our clients.

[Restructuring people operations as a product: Proving the ROI of people decisionsWhat would you build first if your team could build anything, if people weren’t bound to their roles, and if everyone were focused purely on value?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-cbc9dcec-a01c-47e7-a0a5-04fc977068f2.png)People AllianceShannon Janke![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/PA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--4--cc9dc3b1-48c0-4358-81f6-c431f4f45ad7.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/restructuring-people-operations-as-a-product-proving-the-roi-of-people-decisions/)

## **Taking client zero lessons to our actual clients**

We don't stop at applying these lessons internally, we're helping clients transform their own processes using the same AI and automation-powered solutions. Let me give you a couple of examples.

In Brazil, a financial giant, Sicredi, improved its overall management of more than 6,500 monthly customer queries, and that translated into a 10% improvement in customer retention; realized within the first three months of the project.

On the IT operations side, we have a technology advisor at Ensono that has completed 28 million tasks and run over 158,000 jobs, meaningfully improving client incident response and resolution.

Those are just a couple of examples, but they point to something bigger: while transforming enterprise workflows is essential to boosting productivity inside a company, generative AI is also making it possible to reimagine the entire business model.

Our consulting arm has a tool called IBM Consulting Advantage that's a great example of this.

Every one of our consultants has access to it, and it gives them an easy, customized way to tap into thousands of AI tools; not just IBM's, but our partners' technology too. It's built around specific use cases and pain points our consultants have identified for their own clients.

Essentially, we're taking the knowledge and expertise of a consultancy and embedding it into AI so we can deliver better outcomes for clients, faster. It accelerates our time to value and increases the payback on those investments.

[Scaling with soul: Embedding culture and purpose post-mergerScaling with soul means building a company where people feel connected to each other, connected to the mission, and connected to the future we are creating together.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-6ac62b96-27d3-47dc-815c-578cbd831783.png)People AllianceErin McAuley![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/PA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--2--9885699e-b25f-4f43-ab38-571f421355c5.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/culture-and-purpose-post-merger/)

## **How do you drive adoption? Four ways to embed AI**

Building the tool is one thing. Getting people to actually use it is another. Our experience with client zero has taught us that AI is changing how we work at a fundamental level. 

As it becomes more pervasive, job roles are changing, from entry level all the way up to the executive suite, and so are the org structures those roles sit within, and even entire industries.

We're seeing this play out through Consulting Advantage, through the transformation of HR, through our software engineers' coding work, and through our marketing professionals working on our brand.

A lot of the jobs our people are doing today already look different than they did just a year ago.

There are four ways I'd encourage you to think about putting AI into your own organization:

- Building the right AI mindset,
- Redesigning the work itself,
- Making it a hands-on experience, and
- Cultivating the kind of ambassadorship that helps people reimagine how the work gets done and embrace doing it differently.

[Change management in HR: Strategies, challenges, & examplesChange management in HR made simple: actionable strategies, common pitfalls, & expert tips to guide your team through any organizational shift.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-1db2eab9-283f-43f4-ac27-b69603f415f5.png)People AllianceSabrinthia Donnelly![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/Copy-of-PA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--12--1f0e0e8c-bef3-44f4-8ff1-660b6d30ae19.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/change-management-in-hr/)

## **AskHR: what happens when you commit fully**

I mentioned AskHR earlier, and I think it's worth telling you exactly how we rolled it out, because it's a good example of pushing adoption rather than waiting for it. 

Through a single interface, 282,000 employees were asking questions and getting answers, but behind that simple front door was a genuinely complex matrix: 79 systems, more than 4,700 policies, and more than 2,500 processes.

That complexity had been generating a lot of user frustration, and getting people to the right answer was a real [challenge](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/the-3-core-challenges-european-people-leaders-are-currently-facing/).

So we made a decision.

- We believed our solution was good enough that we withdrew the phone number to reach HR.
- We switched off the email.
- We removed the [HR business partners](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-hr-business-partner/) and their direct support.
- We effectively forced our employees to use this AI-powered, digital-first solution.

We were not met with overwhelming enthusiasm at first, I'll be honest.

But the result has been that 94% of all our employee-to-HR interactions are now handled through this AI digital layer, with no [human intervention](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/a-human-approach-to-ai-and-automation/), and the right answers are being delivered.

Our NPS score is now 74, a 55-point increase from when we had HR partners assigned to managers, delivering answers in person. At this point, we don't even debate whether to use AskHR. It's simply embedded in how we show up.

[What fireworks, toilet paper, and AI have in commonIf you know the end goal, AI can help you build the steps. Instead of making me obsolete, it made me more valuable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-9befc761-0659-492d-b22a-4c8469160685.png)People AllianceNamitha Muthukrishnan![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/Copy-of-PA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--8--a047182b-51e4-4d56-9cad-523bab55ad17.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/the-human-advantage-in-the-age-of-ai/)

## **The WatsonX challenge and the technology underneath it all**

I want to leave you with one more example of how you can challenge your own organization: every year, we run what we call the WatsonX challenge, where employees use our own technology to build new solutions, often working across the company with people outside their usual function.

It's not just a way to give employees a good experience and let them explore new ideas, it actually shapes our research and [development](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/development-goals-vs-performance-goals-whats-the-difference/). The use cases people submit give us real signals for how to extend the technology and where to apply it next.

Underneath all of the organizational change and use cases, data is the key ingredient.

Our client zero experience has relied heavily on hybrid cloud technologies to connect our workflows, because before AI can do anything useful, you have to break down your enterprise silos and connect the data.

That's the right place to start. Good governance is good business, too. I mentioned we have an entire governance committee to evaluate and prioritize initiatives, because you're not going to be able to [automate](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/using-ai-to-build-healthier-cultures-and-stronger-companies/) everything, and you need a team thinking strategically about that whole wall of work.

I also want to say a quick word about agents, given how much the conversation around agentic AI has grown. I think we're all getting familiar with the idea of autonomous AI that can reason, plan, and take decisive action to achieve a desired outcome.

Imagine every person in your organization setting outcomes and harnessing AI to make business processes faster, smarter, and [more productive](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/how-youre-demotivating-your-team-and-how-to-stop/). That's the power of agents, and they're set to make this era of the AI-powered enterprise really take off.

I'd encourage you not to overlook incorporating agents into your own AI solutions as you think through your use cases.

[Why joy is the most underrated strategy in your companyYour inner monologue shapes how you experience the world. So when joy starts slipping away, reconnect with the small moments that bring you back to being present.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/icon/PA-ICON-8ea6a1cb-0395-4471-ae1d-99c90ba0f2d3.png)People AllianceNick Holmes![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/23/2423d333-71de-46b8-81af-b10b80c517c9/content/images/thumbnail/PA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--1--1f0f90cd-c8d8-4afb-a36e-bdf852504c80.png)](https://www.peoplealliance.com/articles/why-joy-is-the-most-underrated-strategy-in-your-organization/)

## **Closing thoughts: how would you reshape your business?**

IBM has made our business for this moment. We're focusing our growth on accelerating productivity, and we've done it faster than at any point in our 114-year history.

The return on investment we're seeing isn't accidental, and it isn't a one-off, but the result of a clear strategy, executed deliberately. Coming back to where we began: we are a productive company, but we only got here by constantly asking how we could become more productive.

We're still on that journey, even though we've made a lot of progress, and having brought our own company to new heights of productivity, we genuinely enjoy seeing other companies make meaningful contributions of their own.