Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Businesses: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Ryan Meade:

The Deputy is quite right to say technology can be intrusive. We have all experienced that in our roles. We have brought some technological solutions to bear on that. Again, during the pandemic, people's patterns of work and so on shifted. We now have things like a scheduled send function on Gmail so that you do not have to wait for the other person to wake up before sending an email. You can send it but it will only be received by the other person during his or her working hours. These are little technological solutions that are helpful but they do not get around the overall issue, which is that leadership is required. Embedding those practices in an organisation comes down to the business leadership empowering people to use them and to speak up when their working hours are not respected and so on. It is about a combination of helpful technological tools and, more importantly, leadership.