Welcome to the Technology Purchasing Committee
Summit Workplace Solutions just added you to its Technology Purchasing Committee. Requests for new "AI" tools are pouring in from every department — but people are using the word "AI" to describe everything from a chatbot to a simple scheduling script.
The situation at Summit Workplace Solutions
Your committee approves technology purchases. Before you can evaluate any request, you need to know what kind of tool you're actually looking at, what it's good for, and what it costs the company — in dollars, in risk, and in accuracy. Not every "AI" request deserves a "yes."
Essential question
How does a workplace tell different types of AI apart, and decide which tool — if any — is worth buying?
Estimated time
About 50 minutes, in 9 steps. Your progress is saved automatically, so you can pause and come back.
What you will be able to do by the end of this lesson
- Describe generative AI, predictive AI, natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition, recommendation systems, and rule-based automation.
- Match each technology type to the kind of problem it's built to solve.
- Classify real workplace tools by the type of AI or automation they use.
- Recommend the most appropriate tool type for a department's request.
- Weigh cost, accuracy, privacy, and human-oversight considerations when evaluating a purchase.
- Reject a proposal that doesn't hold up — and explain why.
Seven kinds of "AI" — and what each is actually for
Read each short explanation, then flip the cards to check your understanding. This part is practice — it is not graded.
Not every intelligent-sounding tool does the same job
"AI" is an umbrella term. The seven categories below cover most of what a workplace actually buys. Knowing which one you're looking at is the first step to deciding whether it's the right purchase.
Four factors the committee weighs on every request
Cost — what the tool costs to buy, license, and maintain. Accuracy — how often its output is actually correct. Privacy — whether it handles sensitive data responsibly. Human oversight — how much review a person needs to do before the tool's output is trusted. A tool can be impressive on one factor and still be a bad purchase overall.
Technology type check (practice)
Click a card to flip it and see what that technology type is actually for. Flip through all 7 before continuing.
0 of 7 cards flipped.
Activity 1: Match the Technology to Its Purpose
Select a technology type on the left, then select the purpose on the right that matches it. Match all seven pairs. Use "Check my work" as many times as you like; when you're confident, submit for your final score.
0 of 7 pairs matched.
Activity 2: Classify These Workplace Tools
Ten real tool descriptions came in from around Summit Workplace Solutions. Classify each one by the type of AI or automation it actually uses.
Activity 3: Department Requests
Five departments submitted requests this week. For each, choose the technology type that's the best fit.
Activity 4: Technology Purchasing Dashboard
Five vendors pitched proposals this quarter. Review each proposal's cost, accuracy, risk, and usefulness, then Approve or Reject it. Your committee's annual budget is $50,000.
Activity 5: One Pitch Too Many
One more proposal just landed in the committee's inbox. Read it carefully, decide whether to approve or reject it, and explain your reasoning.
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Activity 6: Final Knowledge Check
A mixed set of questions covering everything from this lesson.
Reflection & Completion
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Your results so far
Total: 0 / 100
Lesson complete
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