Many organisations are eroding the foundations of business – productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency. This is happening due to poor implementation of human-AI collaboration, according to cloud data and AI consultancy, Datatonic. The company says in the next phase of enterprise AI, success will come from carefully-governed and designed AI that works alongside humans in “human-in-the-loop (HiTL)’ systems.
The company’s research shows that companies that fail to embed AI into their human workflows are falling behind the competition as productivity slows down. Datatonic says a hybrid human-AI approach speeds up decision-making, thus improving overall operations. Scott Eivers, CEO of Datatonic says, “AI [is] about redesigning how work gets done. The biggest risk we see in the market is productivity leakage when AI exists in isolation from the people who actually run the business.”
After years of AI investment, pressure is mounting on businesses to show returns. However, some research shows some initiatives remaining in their pilot stage due to limited trust among users. As a result, organisations are failing to use AI-powered insights to positively affect decisions and workflows, meaning efficiency gains never materialise.
According to Datatonic, HiTL models are crucial for future success, providing a combination of AI speed with human judgement and accountability. This is evident in agent-assisted software development, where AI systems create code from loose prompts and transform them into code. In this case, human teams decide what needs to be developed, inspect all requirements, and review plans before being brought into existence. Once this direction is clear, AI agents construct modular components.
The trend for AI in the workplace is starting to appear in finance and operations. For instance, in back-office and finance departments, AI-powered document processing is already delivering a 70% reduction in invoice-processing costs according to some, but finance teams still approve the final outcomes.
“They’re partnership stories,” says Andrew Harding, CTO of Datatonic. “Humans create evaluation systems, validate plans, set guardrails, and make decisions. AI executes at speed and scale. That combination is where real enterprise value shows up.”
Many enterprises are failing to deploy fully autonomous agents safely, according to Datatonic, with shortfalls in security controls and governance frameworks. Autonomy can only scale when organisations introduce approval checkpoints and benchmark performance standards. Evaluation systems must also be implemented as AI models evolve, ensuring they always operate safely and as intended without violating any compliance obligations.
Harding says, “As trust builds, companies can responsibly delegate more to AI. But skipping governance doesn’t build speed, it creates risk.”
Datatonic predicts major acceleration in workloads in the next two years, with preparation and validation handled by AI agents. AI systems may also be implemented to test and invalidate decisions before teams invest resources.
Scott Eivers believes the future “looks like expert departments run by smaller, nimble teams – finance, HR, marketing – each amplified by AI. The companies that win will be those that teach people to work with AI — not around it,” he said.
(Image source: “Waterfall” by PMillera4 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)
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