‘Business leaders and staff have different attitudes to AI’

New research has revealed that business leaders are far more enthusiastic about – and competent with – AI than their employees, highlighting a need for training.

Carried out for Zoom, the research found that 82% of leaders said they were excited about AI, compared with 57% of staff.  

The figures are based on responses from 11,023 full-time knowledge workers in the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore and Australia in a survey conducted by Morning Consult.

Other key findings  included:

• When it comes to adoption of AI, employees are more hesitant than business leaders, with only 63% in favour of the technology, compared with 88% of bosses. 
• 73% of business leaders are using AI at least a few times a week, compared with 32% of employees. 
• 23% of employees don’t use AI at work or for personal use.
• 69% of bosses said their team wouldn’t know how to use AI, with 67% feeling this was because staff aren’t savvy with technology. 

When asked how much time they anticipated AI would save them during a typical working day, 55% of employees and 50% of leaders who don’t use AI said they didn’t know. This uncovers a huge opportunity cost for AI avoiders, and educating this group on the benefits of AI could potentially help drive adoption.

The lack of adoption could explain employees’ perceived drawbacks related to technology, with their three main job loss, data security and accuracy. This shows it is imperative for leaders to educate employees and equip them with the right training to help them understand and adopt AI.

Respondents who are using AI tools at work, however, are seeing significant time savings, with 74% of leaders and 46% of employees saying it saves them at least an hour a day.

The research also revealed that leaders whose teams are using AI reported many benefits, especially around collaboration.

To read the full report, click here.