Next week, our GBS community converges in Estoril for SSOW Europe 2026. As I prepare to join, I find myself reflecting less on the agenda and more on why we gather together – and why this in-person gathering is more important than ever before.
We are a large community of practitioners. We may not always perfectly align on answers and opinions. But we have full convergence on something more important: the concerns, fears, and uncertainties of leading in an environment where technological change is outpacing our organizations – not in theory, but in a real, visible, and tangible way. Events like SSOW exist precisely because no leader has the complete picture alone. We come to exchange, build bridges, trim silos, and keep our line of sight clear.
This edition is the conversation and reflection I want to bring into the discussion – The Human and Organizational Side of AI Transformation. I cover why it matters, and why we should be talking more about it, beyond the hype of the technology itself.
The Gartner reality check
To start, Gartner's 2025 AI Job Impacts Analysis lands a useful piece of clarity: there will be no "jobs apocalypse" due to AI – but there will be job chaos. Gartner predicts that starting in 2028-2029, AI will create more jobs than it eliminates. Wow – why is this not making as many headlines as Anthropic's new Claude Mythos?
Yet Gartner is also saying that each year, more than 32 million jobs will be significantly transformed. Personally, the word transformed always excites me and calls me to action. I believe we have a huge role to play in the transformation of jobs, through our GBS/GCC/SSC organizations globally.
That is the number that should anchor every GBS leadership conversation in the near future. Not "Will AI take jobs?" but: "Are we ready to redesign 32 million jobs annually, at pace, without losing our people in the transition?"
The human and organizational side of AI transformation comes down to three shifts.
Redefining talent and roles in a Generative AI operating model
We need to be clear at this point: we are no longer discussing just adding AI to existing jobs. What we are discussing is broader and deeper – we are, in fact, rebuilding what a job will look like in the future. AI is part of the job design, not just a gimmick or a tool. Let's not get distracted by the idea that AI will simply be a "copilot" (no association to the Microsoft brand) in our work lives.
In Edition #1 of my Connecting.The.Dots. newsletter (which, by the way, you can read on my SSON column of the same name, or on LinkedIn), I introduced the Intelligence Triad – Human + Process + Artificial Intelligence = Amplified Intelligence. It poses a question most operating models avoid: what is the highest-value contribution a human can make when AI handles execution at scale?
The professionals who define the next era of GBS will be certainly Amplified Intelligence Orchestrators (A.I.O) – people who blend professional judgment, Process knowledge, Data expertise, and AI capability into outcomes none of the components could deliver alone. We will need designers, not operators. Curators, not processors. The same people, but fundamentally different roles.
This means the org charts we inherited were built for transactional throughput. The org charts we need will be built for A.I.O.
Are we ready to move in this direction?
From Ownership to Stewardship – extended to Context
Here is the shift most organizations are missing.
For 30+ years, Shared Services have been built around Process ownership. To unpack the building blocks for the future, we need to distinguish two fundamental roles: Owners vs Stewards. Owners hold accountability and decision rights; Stewards carry operational responsibility day to day. Already today, we need them both – and we need them across two perimeters: Process AND Data.
But there is a third dimension coming up rapidly, which I have come to believe is the next frontier – one where Humans will matter more than ever: Context.
Process is how we do things. Data is what we know. Context is why it matters, when it applies, and what nuance shapes the right call.
Generative AI is brilliant at Process, and getting better at Data. But it has no native sense of Context – and that is exactly where most AI failures happen. The system delivers a technically correct answer that is operationally wrong, because nobody curated the Context the model needed.
GBS Condominiums are unavoidable – but who goes first?
The third shift is structural. Generative AI flows horizontally. Our organizations are still vertical. Functions hoard Data behind what I have called Data Hedges – natural boundaries that grow into invisible walls.
Breaking silos inside one company is hard enough. The bolder question is whether GBS organizations will finally cross company boundaries effectively.
I believe GBS Condominiums are now unavoidable. The economic environment, the talent scarcity, the pace of AI investment – none of it works at the scale of a single company anymore. The only real question is who will be bold enough to take the first step, and how the setup should look.
The IP-vs-operating-capacity line is where this conversation gets practical:
- Protect as IP: anything that differentiates you commercially. Proprietary methodologies, customer-specific workflows, pricing logic, confidential intelligence.
- Share as operating capacity or capability: anything where collective scale makes everyone safer or faster.
The clearest example today is bank account and payment fraud. By the way, I'll be presenting on this very topic at SSOW next week, so please join if it's a subject you are interested in. Back to the example: defending our companies from fraudsters and cyber-criminals in isolation, with only a fraction of the signal, is structurally inefficient. Shared security Processes, shared pattern recognition, and shared Know-Your-Vendor and Know-Your-Customer capabilities make every participant stronger – and make the protective lines of defense more effective by compounding intelligence and Data sources. The same logic applies to Master Data governance, sanctions screening, and emerging AI-risk monitoring. We all need these capabilities – but can we afford to keep building them in isolation?
The first mover here will not be the largest GBS in the room – it will be the boldest, and the one willing to connect the dots to unlock the winning move (to borrow an analogy from chess).
See you in Estoril
Job chaos is coming. So is Amplified Intelligence Orchestration. The organizations that thrive will be the ones that redesign the human layer with the same seriousness they apply to the tech stack.
If you'll be at SSOW Europe 2026, let's continue this conversation in person. Bridges, not hedges.
Disclaimer: The content of this article is based on the author's own independent reflections and thoughts and is not in any way associated with any company or organization and has no commercial intent.