Innovating Next Generation Services through Collaborative Design

专业服务公司正面临着来自人工智能和机器学习技术的越来越多的挑战。虽然这些技术创新对增长和生产率很重要，但如何将它们整合到商业实践和商业管理中是至关重要的。这个项目的重点是关于未来不确定性的合作探索在会计和法律服务领域新的人工智能技术的设计和实施中可以发挥的作用。该项目关注的是企业如何通过一种协作设计模式来思考如何改变他们的工作方式，该模式考虑了人工智能技术的当前和未来路径，以及更广泛、更具活力的机构格局。该项目解决了英国工业战略的重大挑战，该挑战呼吁考虑人工智能技术如何提高英国的国家生产率和增长。该项目将专门专注于综合来自商业模式创新、运营管理、对专业服务公司的研究、人工智能的发展和服务设计的见解，以了解PSF的创新是如何被采纳和吸收的。项目团队将把这些多学科的学术见解与专业服务公司创新者的实地理解和观点联系起来。为了实现这些目标，该项目将继续关注人们在中端市场公司内对新产品和服务的体验，由于其规模、竞争威胁和资源，这些公司对技术变化特别敏感。这项研究将对创新和变革性人工智能技术的整合中以人为中心的作用产生洞察力，而不是仅仅关注技术本身。这项研究将寻求对与公司合作设计的解决方案进行探索性原型设计，以实现对整个商业模式中人工智能未来潜在应用的快速生成和评估。这一点对于扩大公司内部人员参与探索专业服务公司内部挑战和战略的项目目标至关重要。最后，该项目寻求将研究见解转化为多种形式和媒体，以满足在快速技术变革挑战中工作的公司的不同需求和要求。该项目的关键将是探索和识别在会计和法律领域采用人工智能提供的“威胁”和“机会”的主要领域，以及分析基于人工智能的商业模式创新的潜在障碍。调查结果将被用来就如何解决这些问题提出建议。除了技术障碍，这项研究还将寻求探索PSF面临的制度、监管和社会挑战。通过将这些目标与联合创作实践相结合，该项目寻求为人工智能和机器学习的交汇点提供战略和商业解决方案。该项目将通过五个工作包交付。这些将包括探索制度因素、机会和障碍的初始阶段，然后通过与项目团队研究视角所知的“设计冲刺”公司直接合作来设计战略。最后阶段将综合证据和调查结果，以产生重要的学术和从业人员产出，并通过伙伴利益攸关方和组织进行传播。通过我们与管理合作伙伴论坛的密切合作，该项目将有机会接触到两个行业的中型公司。这项研究将对设计思维方法如何扩展我们的创新概念提供重要的学术见解，并寻求提供关键建议，这些建议将塑造人工智能的实施方式，以及专业服务公司如何制定应对快速技术变革的框架。

Professional service firms are facing increasing challenges from A.I .and machine learning technologies. Whilst these technological innovations are important for growth and productivity, how they are integrated into business practices and business m is of critical concern. This project focuses on the role that collaborative exploration about future uncertainties can play in the design and implementation of new A.I. technologies in accounting and legal services. The project focuses on the ways in which businesses can think about changing the way they work through a collaborative design model that considers current and future pathways for A.I. technologies and the broader, dynamic institutional landscape. The project addresses the UK Industrial Strategy's Grand Challenge which calls for a consideration of how AI technologies can boost UK national productivity and growth. The project will focus specifically on synthesising insights from business model innovation, operations management, studies of professional service firms, developments in AI, and service design to understand how innovation in PSFs is adopted and assimilated. The project team will connect these multidisciplinary academic insights with the on-the-ground understandings and perspectives of innovators in professional services firms. To achieve the aims, the project will maintain a focus on people's experiences of new products and services within mid-market firms which are particularly sensitive to technological change due to their size, the threat of competition, and resources. Rather than focusing solely on the technology itself, the research will generate insights into a human-centric role for innovation and the integration of transformative AI technologies. The research will look to undertake exploratory prototyping of solutions designed in collaboration with firms to enable a rapid generation and assessment of potential future applications of AI across the business model. This is critical in the objective of the project to broaden participation of those within firms in exploring challenges and strategies within professional service firms. Finally, the project seeks to translate research insights into multiple formats and media, addressing the different needs and demands of firms working within the challenges of rapid technological transformation.Key to the project will be the exploration and identification of the main areas of 'threat' and 'opportunity' offered by the adoption of AI in accounting and law as well as analysing the potential barriers to AI-based business model innovation. The findings will be used to offer proposals as to how these might be addressed. Alongside the technological barriers, the research will seek to explore the institutional, regulatory and societal challenges that face PSFs. By integrating these objectives with co-creative practices the project seeks to provide strategies and business solutions for those at the coalface of AI and machine learning.The project will be delivered through five work packages. These will include an initial phase exploring institutional factors, and opportunities and barriers, before designing strategies through direct collaboration with firms in 'design sprints' informed by the research perspectives of the project team. The final phase will synthesize the evidence and findings to generate important academic and practitioner outputs as well as dissemination through partner stakeholders and organisations. Through our close collaboration with the Managing Partners' Forum, the project will have access to mid-size firms across the 2 sectors identified. This research will deliver important academic insights into the ways in which a design thinking approach can expand our notion of innovation and seek to provide key recommendations that will shape how AI is implemented and how professional service firms can frame their responses to rapid technological change.