KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysian companies are increasingly embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance productivity and efficiency, but many risk missing out on its full potential by treating it as a plug-and-play solution rather than a catalyst for broader business transformation.
AI governance and transformation expert Kamales Lardi said businesses were often introducing AI into existing workflows without reassessing the processes, structures and capabilities needed to maximise its benefits.
“So companies are looking at AI as sort of a technology implementation like every other implementation we take an AI solution we implement it and we get business results but that’s not the outcome that you’re getting,” she told Scoop.
She said organisations needed to rethink how work was carried out, including their processes, operating models and workforce capabilities, instead of simply adding AI tools into existing systems.
“You need to change the processes, the working modes, the skill sets you have to transform your organisation to leverage AI effectively. It’s not just about implementing a technology, there you get a very limited outcome,” she added.
Kamales, the CEO of Lardi & Partner Consulting, highlighted a financial services company as an example of how AI could deliver greater value when paired with process redesign.
She said an application process that previously required three to four hours was reduced to around 10 minutes after the company restructured the entire workflow around AI.
Under the redesigned system, AI was used to collect and process information, read documents and generate recommendations, while human oversight remained an essential part of the decision-making process.
“And then the second part of the process is the human verification. I’m giving this example because we have implemented this for a financial services company where the initial process took maybe three to four hours for one application. We reduced it to 10 minutes.”
“This is what I mean by business transformation,” she explained.
However, Kamales warned that many companies were still maintaining lengthy procedures while merely inserting AI into selected stages, before expecting immediate cost reductions or efficiency gains.
“Most companies, what they’re doing is they’re still keeping that 22 steps or 20 steps. They apply AI to it and then they ask why isn’t this reducing,” she said.
She also cautioned against companies moving too quickly to reduce their workforce without first understanding which tasks could be automated and where human judgement remained necessary.
“So these are some of the challenges we’re seeing real time in the market,” she said.
Kamales added that some organisations were adopting AI merely to signal that they had embraced new technology, rather than addressing underlying operational weaknesses.
“You want to tick a box and say we have AI in the company now,” she said, describing AI as a mirror that reveals inefficiencies, weak processes and gaps in leadership understanding.
“If something is not working well in your company, AI will exponentiate that,” she stressed.
She noted that the rapid advancement of AI technologies was also creating challenges for companies trying to keep pace, particularly in developing workforce skills and establishing effective governance frameworks.
“The technology is accelerating so quickly,” she said, adding that businesses could find themselves constantly catching up as new AI platforms and innovations emerged.
Kamales urged Malaysian companies to prioritise effective implementation over speed, stressing that a thoughtful approach would deliver greater long-term benefits.
“Doing it the right way is more important than doing it fast.” – August 21, 2026