The Sum Greater Than Its Parts: Why People Are Fundamental to AI Transformation

This is the second AI-focused article by Imogen Firmstone, a Cyber expert formerly of the UK government and now Visiting Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University. Her work sits at the intersection of geopolitics, national security and emerging technology. In this piece, Imogen examines how organisations should implement AI in support of their overall corporate vision, where people remain central to the organisation.

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters recently described 8,000 people losing their jobs as "lower value human capital". This degrading language unsurprisingly did nothing to build trust and loyalty among a workforce that he was asking to embrace adaptation.

But behind the unfortunate phrase was a strategy that had been carefully thought through: a plan built around AI, reshaping internal business functions by identifying where AI could be most useful. The jobs cut were the visible, brutal headline. The thinking behind them is the part worth paying attention to.

None of us know the future of the corporate model, but we are certainly at an inflection point in how AI is developed, used and managed. Some Boards see AI purely as a route to efficiency and cost-cutting. Others see a different future: reshaped workforces, businesses limited only by our imagination. And some see a technology we don't yet fully understand, in need of careful control. Identifying what AI should do, and what people should do, will be one of the most important Board decisions of our age.

Future thinking, strategy development and organisational reshaping will be critical to harness the benefits of AI. Under-discussed but equally important is developing the people strategy alongside it. AI gives businesses a genuine opportunity to reshape themselves. The real question is how they make the most of both the technology and their people.

Don’t fall into the efficiency trap

Organisations have absorbed technological advances of the past such as the desktop computer, laptop and mobile phone, reshaping how we work each time.  Businesses are already looking at how they can incorporate AI into their organisations - but not asking how they should. Too often it's treated as a cost-cutting tool, when its real potential is much greater — and needs to be implemented through calibrated change, not blunt substitution.

As an advisor on AI, for me it’s not about tasks or efficiency, although these will play a part. It’s about how organisations envisage their future through an AI and people lens; building clarity on how people and AI work together, and creating the structures that let both do what they do best.

We are still early on the AI journey, but McKinsey’s ‘The State of AI in 2025’ report identifies some important trends. The organisations getting the most out of AI so far share three things: they've thought about the value they want from it, rather than simply introducing new tools; they're ambitious about their AI objectives, using it for growth and innovation as well as cost savings; and they have a clear strategy for adoption - including where people, not AI, make the decisions - alongside a workforce plan that accounts for AI's impact.

Fully integrated use of AI is expensive and will become more so in future as the companies providing the systems and energy will need to recoup their huge capital investment. This makes it imperative that organisations truly understand the value AI is bringing.

Don't lose the human advantage

Young people in the UK and elsewhere are understandably concerned that AI is making it very difficult for them to get a first job, and this fear is compounded when AI-driven organisational restructures cause anxiety among their existing workforce. AI will shape the future, but people remain the key to organisational delivery. We need to keep investing in them, or risk missing the power of being human altogether. 

Our brains are highly complex and capable. They synthesise data, solve problems, make connections and deal with ambiguity in a way that AI cannot yet do. They are also incredibly adaptable, which has kept humans evolving and alive for tens of thousands of years – the superpower of being human. Bringing the best of people and AI together, recognising what each does best, and bringing the workforce along on that journey, is far more likely to deliver the benefits of both. This requires proactive, conscious decisions about what we want AI to do — and what we don't.

Let's put people, their strengths, training and development - including the next generation - at the centre of transformation. Society and organisations need a pipeline for people to build the skills, knowledge and judgement to become the next generation of workers and leaders. They will need to co-develop with AI, but they will also need room to build their uniquely human qualities. AI and people are different, and should not be seen as an interchangeable workforce.

The questions worth asking

Advising organisations on AI implementation, the starting point for me is always the same: step back from the immediate drive for cost savings and efficiency, and look instead at the future vision and strategy of the organisation. AI is an expensive resource with significant risks, so the real question is where it can best support that vision - and only then does a clear AI strategy, with policies to manage it, follow.

Some of the questions that can help assess where the value of AI for an organisation really sits include:

• Is it improving outcomes that matter - customer satisfaction, service quality, or compliance - or just activity?

• Are the cost savings real, and showing up where we expected?

• Is our talent pipeline still intact? Are the people who understand the business (our future leaders) still coming through, or has AI closed that door?

• Have we decided where AI can act with little oversight, and where a person must stay in control?

• Is our AI moving from pilot towards properly governed implementation, and do we have the controls and oversight to support that?

• Do the benefits outweigh the costs - not just financially, but against the risk and governance investment required?

Know your people, know your technology

Businesses are used to technological progress.  AI provides an opportunity to re-think not only how technology supports business but how people and technology work together - making the sum greater than its parts.

We should know our people, and we should know our technology. The organisations that succeed won't be the ones that simply hand tasks to AI. It will be the ones with the imagination to redefine what people and AI should each be doing - building the environment where both can do what they do best, in service of the organisation's strategy. That means understanding not just what AI and people can deliver, but their limits and their costs too.

If you would like to explore how Plato Group can support your organisation with the challenges and solutions discussed in this piece, then get in touch.

This thought leadership paper is published in collaboration between Imogen Firmstone and Plato Group Ltd. The usual disclaimer applies.

Imogen Firmstone

Imogen is an expert in geopolitics, diplomacy and cyber leadership. As a former senior UK government official, she has over two decades of experience advising governments and international partners on national security and cyber resilience. She has held leadership positions in cross-government and international efforts to counter cyber threats. Imogen is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University. She is researching decision making and effectiveness in the cyber domain within contemporary geopolitics, and the impact of technological advances such as AI and Quantum technologies on the use of cyber capabilities in an increasingly contested and technologically dynamic global environment.

Plato Group Ltd.

Plato Group is a network of policy experts, former diplomats, academics, and geopolitical advisers. Its Advisors have held senior positions in governments and central banks all over the world, as well as at the UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the OSCE. They are seasoned practitioners with direct experience in advanced and emerging markets. Plato Group blends international and local expertise, providing comprehensive insights tailored to a client’s needs.