AI is everywhere.

New models. New platforms. New tools. New capabilities.

For businesses, however, the question is becoming less about:

“What can AI do?”

And more about:

“How can we actually use it in our daily work?”

That distinction may define the next phase of workplace AI.

An Interesting Perspective from Baidu

At Baidu World 2025, Baidu Co-founder and CEO Robin Li (李彦宏) discussed a shift happening in AI.

He described it as moving from:

“智能涌现” — Emergence of Intelligence

to

“效果涌现” — Emergence of Results

It’s an interesting way to look at where the industry is heading.

For years, much of the attention has been on making AI more intelligent.

But businesses don't benefit simply because a model becomes smarter.

They benefit when that intelligence produces a useful result.

And that leads to a much more practical conversation about AI adoption.

The SME Reality Is Different

When people talk about AI transformation, it can sound like every company needs another sophisticated platform.

But think about a typical SME.

Employees already have:

• Email.
• Cloud storage.
• ERP or accounting software.
• Messaging platforms.
• Internal systems.
• Office equipment.

Adding another AI platform also means another system employees need to understand and incorporate into their work.

So perhaps AI adoption doesn't always need to begin with:

“What new system should we introduce?”

It could begin with:

“What are our employees already doing every day?”

And then:

“Can AI make that task easier?”

This is where things become much more practical.

Take One Simple Office Task: Scanning

Scanning isn't exciting.

But it happens every day.

Invoices. Contracts. Reports. Forms. Handwritten notes. Customer documents.

The traditional process is simple:

DOCUMENT → SCAN → PDF

But think about what happens after that.

• Someone still needs to open the PDF.
• Someone needs to read it.
• Someone may need to summarise it.
• Someone may need to translate it.
• Someone may need to extract information from it.
• Someone needs to send that information to the next person or system.

The document became digital.

The work didn't disappear.

Now Add AI to the Same Process

This is where our perspective on workplace AI starts to change.

Instead of:

DOCUMENT → SCAN → PDF

Imagine:

DOCUMENT → SCAN → UNDERSTAND → PROCESS → ACTION

• A report could be summarised.
• A multilingual document could be translated.
• Information from an invoice or contract could be extracted.
• Handwritten notes could become searchable digital information.
• The result could then move to email, cloud storage or another workflow.

Notice what's important here.

The employee hasn't necessarily been asked to completely change the way they begin their work.

They still start with something familiar:

Scanning a document.

The intelligence happens around that existing action.

This Is Why Ricoh's Direction Is Interesting

This brings us to developments around Ricoh's AI-powered document capabilities.

The interesting part isn't simply:

“A printer now has AI.”

That would be looking at it from a product perspective.

The bigger idea is:

AI is moving closer to where everyday work already happens.

For decades, the multifunction printer has been about:

PRINT → COPY → SCAN

Now we're beginning to see the possibility of:

SCAN → UNDERSTAND → USE

That's a very different role for an office device.

The MFP starts becoming an entry point into a smarter document workflow rather than simply the machine that creates or digitises paper.

Maybe We're Asking the Wrong AI Question

There will absolutely be businesses that need dedicated AI platforms.

There will be processes that require major digital transformation.

But not every AI improvement needs to begin with another platform.

Sometimes the opportunity is much closer.

Look at what employees already do.

Look at where repetitive work happens.

Look at where information gets stuck.

Then ask:

“Could intelligence be built into this existing workflow?”

For SMEs especially, that may be one of the more practical ways to approach AI adoption.

Not AI everywhere.

Not AI because everyone is talking about AI.

But AI where it genuinely makes work easier.

From New Tools to Smarter Work

The future workplace may not look dramatically different.

There will still be documents.

There will still be invoices.

There will still be approvals.

There will still be multifunction printers.

What changes is what happens behind each action.

And perhaps that's where Robin Li's idea of moving from “intelligence” to “results” becomes especially relevant.

The next phase of workplace AI may not be defined by how many AI tools a business adopts.

It may be defined by how naturally intelligence becomes part of the work people already do.

At EDS, this is the direction we're watching closely as AI begins reshaping document workflows and the role of everyday office technology.
 

Useful AI shouldn't give employees more technology to manage.

It should give them less work to manage.

#WorkplaceAI #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork #Ricoh #WorkflowAutomation #DocumentManagement #BusinessProductivity #EDS