Little by little, artificial intelligence is making its way into our professional practices. Yet its implementation often remains elementary. To fully harness the potential of AI, you need to change your perspective. You need to think, work, and collaborate differently, explains Tarik Hennen, expert in digital strategy and AI.
AI in everyday work: an underused potential
A little over two years after the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has become a working tool for many professionals. Sometimes in a formalised way at the organisational level, often informally at the individual level, its adoption is progressing — faster, it seems, in large structures than in SMEs or among independent professionals, where much remains to be done.
But as Tarik Hennen, founder of the agency Antidote, observes, this use often remains confined to the most obvious applications: text generation in emails, posts, reports, and presentations; occasionally, image generation… “Applications that represent only the tip of the iceberg compared to the possibilities of AI.”
There is a distinction to be made, he explains: “Buying a ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot licence is not the same as deploying AI in your professional activity. To use an analogy, buying a calculator does not make you a chartered accountant.”
Towards co-intelligence: AI as a strategic partner
“AI enables many other things: brainstorming, drawing up budgets, analysing data… You can use it to write a report, but also to challenge that report, by asking the AI to examine it from the perspective of the recipient and in relation to the objectives set. Conversely, a manager can use it to evaluate the report, suggest areas for improvement, and give constructive feedback. This is the whole domain of what is called co-intelligence: you can even make AI a ‘co-director’, which will contribute to strategic thinking and improve decisions. It is not particularly difficult — you just need to think of it.”
Whether you are a lawyer analysing complex case law, a consultant preparing a business proposal, or an independent professional optimising your administrative management, AI can become a genuine thinking partner, capable of challenging your approaches and enriching your expertise.
The three stages of successful integration
“I believe that a successful implementation of AI goes through three stages,” Tarik Hennen continues.
1. Literacy Acquiring the basic principles and technical knowledge. This is the indispensable starting point for understanding what AI can — and cannot — do.
2. Performance Using AI to improve the results of your activity, the output of your work, and moving from an individual to a collective dimension. This is where AI begins to concretely transform work processes.
3. Transformation There is a higher stage where you explore new ways of delivering a service, creating a product… This stage involves fundamentally rethinking your value creation model.
“Deploying AI is an opportunity to revisit the tools and instruments you want to use, but may not have had access to before. Having the tool is not enough to create transformation; using ChatGPT does not make you a marketer or a writer. You need to accept that you will have to change, perhaps develop new competencies, but this also opens up a whole horizon of new possibilities.”
Tarik Hennen shared these views as part of an interview linked to his training “AI in practice”, delivered as part of the Business and Artificial Intelligence training cycle (EPHEC Formation Continue). The original version of this article was published on 29 March 2025 on the blog Ambitions & Perspectives, edited by EPHEC Formation Continue.
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