In Reconfig, we frequently run demos with potential clients. The purpose is to showcase different parts of the tool and discuss how it can be applied to improve their organizations.
A few months ago, we discussed how we could further improve the demos by tailoring them to the people that we speak to – without asking them to provide any data from their organizations.
The solution: Generate synthetic data.
Here’s how it works. On most of the screens, we now have a button you can press that automatically populates fields with data. Not just any data, but data that are plausible given the organization you work for.
We have integrated Reconfig with ChatGPT to make this happen.
As an example, below, I have entered the name (NMBU) and the web site of my university (nmbu.no), and then pressed “Generate activities.” Reconfig generated 20 activities (you can request more activities, or ask it to split an activity into sub-activities).
Synthetic data created using Reconfig for NMBU (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)
The list of activities is quite realistic (e.g., the first one [“Research planning and proposal development”] is really one of our core activities – NMBU is the number one university in Norway in terms of external funding per academic staff). Nonetheless, the list is only a suggestion – every activity can be edited or deleted, and you can add your own.
But the point is that armed with synthetic data, we can now demo every key feature of the tool by using realistic data (the system even generates employee lists and organization charts with realistic-sounding names!).
Once we had this new functionality installed, we started wondering whether it could be used for something more. The data are of course artificial, so one could argue that this is mainly a “gimmick” to help us run demos.
However, my colleague in Reconfig, Tore Christiansen, believes that synthetic data can provide real insight. In fact, in the future, synthetic data may allow entirely new types of analyses of organizations.
In a previous blog post, I discussed how clients can use Reconfig to create an organizational digital twin (ODT). This is still a key focus area for us. Yet in most cases, it is fairly time-consuming and costly to update a digital twin so that it reflects the current reality at any time.
With synthetic data, we can instead create a “digital sibling.” The goal here is not to have a perfect representation of the organization, but one that is close enough – a representation that decision makers recognize as realistic. They can then use the model to better understand how their organization differs from competitors, or to simulate and test the effects of potential organizational changes. In fact, one can easily generate multiple siblings to evaluate various combinations of resources, activities, and organizational units.
As an example, Tore recently generated synthetic data for the world’s 12 largest airlines. He went through all the different Reconfig features and even calculated the savings each airline could achieve from automation. For example, based on the synthetic data and integration with ChatGPT, Reconfig concludes that one airline has 60% automation potential in its customer service department (see example screen shot below).
Synthetic data created using Reconfig for NMBU (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)
Of course, the data are not “real” and will never be as good as actual data from the airlines themselves. But as I mentioned above, one can edit the information along the way. So if you have access to data (either internal, or data from a publicly available source) you can correct the synthetic data and get an even more realistic model.
I have also found that this functionality may be used simply to generate hypotheses about the organization in question, which one can later confirm or disconfirm by collecting real data.
In conclusion, this capability not only enhances our demo experience but also opens up new possibilities for organizational analysis and decision-making. As AI rapidly becomes more powerful, we expect the synthetic data to become even more realistic and useful.
Feel free to contact us for further information: https://reconfig.no/contact/