AI for KM: Unlocking the future with a human-centric focus

Partner with IT

KM’s involvement with digital strategy makes IT a key partner. The two functions are also a natural fit: KM relies on IT to build, configure, and manage many of the applications employees use for knowledge sharing and access. KM, in turn, can provide input on user needs, help to shape change management plans, and develop training approaches for new tools.

More fundamentally, KM brings content management capabilities to the table. Ensuring that content is authoritative, relevant, and up-to-date isn’t just a “nice to have”—it’s a critical success factor for the ability to implement and train AI models effectively. Helping to clean up messy and disorganized enterprise content is one of the most valuable roles that KM can play in its partnership with IT.

In terms of structure, a partnership with IT does not need to be a reporting relationship. We found that only 14% of KM teams report to their IT function. Other respondents said that their KM teams report to a strategy or transformation office (20%), functional business units (14%), HR (12%), or other groups. However, teams that do not directly report to IT still require an ongoing partnership to ensure the success of technology implementation for KM.

Leading practices for IT and KM partnerships

To build effective partnerships between IT and KM, follow these recommendations:

• Work to understand your IT function. Assess its structure, mission, aspirations, and challenges. This information can help KM determine the right approach for partnership with IT. For example, if IT has staff embedded within the business, these individuals can be valuable allies for KM—especially if there is overlap in the business units touched by IT and KM.

• Stay aligned with organizational goals and strategy through bodies such as an executive KM steering committee or relationships with executive sponsors.

• Build relationships with multiple team members. Talk to different people in IT—not just the leader—to better understand the team’s goals and culture.

• Start by offering help, not by making demands. For example, KM can help IT choose technologies that align with employees’ knowledge needs and use KM roles and platforms to communicate about digital transformation initiatives.

• Stay connected. Because KM needs IT so often, it’s easy for the relationship to become transactional. Put in the work to build a meaningful partnership by continually demonstrating curiosity and interest in IT’s goals and how to support them.

Key takeaways

AI implementation and adoption are growing across industries, and nearly all respondents to our survey (95%) anticipate seeing benefits from these technologies within 3 years or less. To stay on track to achieving these benefits and sustaining them across time, KM teams need to keep a laser focus on the human dimensions of technology.

Developing and honing your KM team’s change management capabilities are two of the most important things you can do to help your organization prepare for AI and implement it effectively. Partnerships with IT are also critical, not only for helping KM implement new technologies, but by also providing opportunities for KM to provide value back to the business. Developing these partnerships and staying focused on the human side of technology enable KM to have a key seat at the digital strategy table where it belongs.

See: Top AI skills to develop