ISS: Generative AI Is Reshaping Workplace Culture & Talent

Generative AI is no longer confined to IT departments or innovation labs. The technology has evolved into a strategic tool fundamentally reshaping how organisations support, engage and empower their workforce. For C-suite leaders, the question is no longer whether to adopt Gen AI, but how to deploy it to enhance employee experience while driving measurable business outcomes.

According to early adopters across healthcare, facilities management and public safety sectors, Gen AI is becoming essential to workforce strategy, with direct implications for retention, productivity and competitive positioning.

Gen AI reduces administrative friction

One of the most immediate impacts of Gen AI on employee experience is its ability to eliminate time-consuming administrative tasks. Uniting NSW.ACT, which employs more than 11,000 people across aged care and community support services, has deployed an AI-powered digital assistant called Buddy to support frontline workers.

The tool offers voice-to-text capabilities, multi-language support and intelligent access to policies and systems, streamlining activities such as case note transcription and information retrieval.

Andrew Dome, Chief Digital Information Officer at Uniting, explains that Buddy has transformed frontline work by saving employees hours daily. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, the solution is underpinned by rigorous governance to ensure ethical AI use.

Similarly, Axon is revolutionising public safety operations with AI tools designed to reduce administrative loads for law enforcement and emergency responders. Its AI-powered Draft One solution converts body-worn camera footage into incident reports, cutting report-writing time by more than 50%.

Real-Time Translation on Axon Body 4 bridges language gaps, improving communication in diverse communities.

Gaurav Vikash, Head of Security & Risk at Axon, notes that these technologies empower employees to focus on protecting communities while improving efficiency and transparency.

Enhancing productivity through intelligent workflows

Beyond reducing administrative burden, gen AI is enabling organisations to reimagine workflows in ways that enhance both employee productivity and engagement. ISS World is leveraging gen AI to transform workplace experience and facility services through digital innovation.

Zeljko Ivkovic, CIO (APAC) at ISS, describes how gen AI powers features like chatbots for contract drafting and automated support in sales and quotations. Integrated within ISS' Workplace Experience app, AI optimises space utilisation, smooths onboarding and boosts productivity in hybrid work environments.

The strategic value extends beyond immediate productivity gains. By automating routine tasks and providing intelligent support, gen AI frees employees to focus on creative problem-solving, relationship-building and strategic decision-making.

Building AI literacy for competitive advantage

The rising adoption of gen AI highlights a growing need for AI literacy and skills development across the workforce. The maturation of technologies like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is helping solve generative AI's biggest challenges by grounding AI outputs in trusted data sources.

Tabcorp is using gen AI through its in-house platform called Tab Intelligence, built with Databricks Mosaic AI tools. The platform employs RAG to harness vast unstructured data to drive productivity and innovation.

Amy Shi-Nash, Chief Analytics and Data Officer at Tabcorp, describes how key uses include automating marketing tasks, enhancing compliance processes and accelerating system issue responses. Tabcorp also applies AI to deliver personalised customer experiences and safer gambling through real-time risk assessment models, achieving significant efficiency gains and cost reductions.

These examples demonstrate that gen AI is rapidly becoming a core technology shaping not just business operations, but the employee experience itself. Modern AI systems can reason through complex problems, generate creative outputs on demand and power sophisticated workflows autonomously.

For C-suite executives, the strategic imperative is clear. Gen AI presents an opportunity to fundamentally enhance employee experience while driving operational efficiency, innovation and competitive differentiation. Organisations that move quickly to deploy gen AI in ways that support and empower their workforce could gain significant advantages in talent retention, productivity and business performance.