In last week’s article I wrote about AI and alliance management, asking whether AI could be a threat to our profession or whether it would make us more effective. Many of you responded, supporting the idea of AI as a co-pilot in alliance management. You agreed that alliance management relies heavily on human interaction and judgement, relationship-building, and navigating ambiguity in politically sensitive situations.
These are precisely the areas where AI tools struggle, and where we as alliance professionals must maintain our lead. Will AI improve in these areas? Most likely. But will it ever replace human interaction? Hopefully not!
We should continue focusing our human alliance management effort on the areas where it matters most: building trust, navigating politics, and aligning strategies across organisations. AI can help us do that. On one side it can help, as one of you wrote, to accelerate the analytical side of strategy and alliance work.
On the other hand, AI can serve as an advisor on the human elements. You can, for example, feed it with information about situations where trust needs to be (re)built, politics need to be navigated or strategies aligned. Ask it then for advice and you may be surprised how it can inspire you to see different angles of the situation or even possible solutions. In the end, however, these remain human elements. It is still you, the alliance professional, who must do the work towards the partner and internal stakeholders.
I often compare the alliance management profession to the lubricant in an engine or the glue that holds the pieces together. You only notice it when it is no longer there. As alliance professionals, we sometimes work silently “under the radar”.
That’s not okay anymore!
In this age of AI it is more important than ever to interact with our stakeholders proactively. We must ensure that our profession, and the need for it, is well understood across the organisation. Otherwise, we risk being, partially, replaced by AI. That would hurt us in the short term, but it would harm our organisations and their attractiveness as a partner even more in the long term.
As one of you wrote to me last week: “We now have the collective responsibility to be proactive in showcasing the human value, before it is too late for all of us (career alliance professionals).”
PS: Consider downloading my free white paper on executive involvement in alliance management, it might be helpful in creating understanding of our profession with your management.