How AI augments value creation: towards a model of human-AI cooperation in services research

Abstract

This chapter examines how humans and artificial intelligence (AI) work together to create value in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The analysis focuses on identifying the key activities for human–AI cooperation, and the influences of this cooperation on value creation. Drawing from the literature on KIBS value creation and capabilities and empirical insights from two companies that have started developing their own AI-enhanced digital platform for streamlining their labour-intensive expert-matching processes, the chapter identifies three types of human–AI cooperative activities:1) increasing resource understanding, 2) enhancing resource utilisation and 3) improving resource availability. Activities indicate that AI is especially transforming tasks based on the social capital of humans, highlighting the systemic nature of AI and calling for greater elaboration of human–AI cooperation as a theoretical vehicle to understand humans and AI. The chapter also provides insights into the managers who are implementing AI-enhanced decision support systems in their organisations.