Dive Brief:
- More than half of employees said their roles have significantly changed because of AI in the last two years, but nearly 60% said they are unsure of their employer’s plan to address those changes, according to a report from Visier, published Wednesday. The business analytics firm conducted a survey of 1,000 full-time employees and additional interviews for the report.
- Nearly half of employees reported pressure to use AI, and a similar proportion said they exaggerate their AI use and expertise to colleagues and managers. Seven in 10 employees expressed concern that the technology’s adoption could negatively affect their careers or lead to job loss.
- The AI experience differs from employee to employee, Andrea Derler, principal of research and value at Visier, told CIO Dive. “It is extremely idiosyncratic, it depends on the individual’s workflow, and that really matters, I think, for a senior leader in any of these organizations.”
Dive Insight:
While AI deployment persists across the enterprise, employees and leaders aren’t on the same page about how the technology is being used — or how much support employees need.
Some employees reported that AI helped them complete tasks faster, collaborate and develop new career opportunities, while others said they feel pressure to increase their output and feel concerned about the security of sensitive information, according to the report.
About one-quarter of employees expressed concern that AI will cause them to lose their job, while others said it could limit opportunities for advancement. Only workers who use AI on a daily basis feel positively about the technology’s effect on their job security, a recent survey conducted by CNBC and SurveyMonkey found.
CIOs and CISOs often fail to see what’s happening at the lower level, and don’t realize how much AI is changing the day-to-day for their employees, Jacob Appleton, Visier’s director of information security, told CIO Dive.
Leadership pushing employees to use AI without the proper security foundation can lead to an increase in risk, Appleton said.
“If an organization’s rushing ahead of where their employees are, or pushing their employees to rush ahead of where leadership is, then you have these risks building up in your organization without necessarily having that visibility,” he said.
Employees said AI training and upskilling, transparency from leadership, opportunities for career advancement and clearer communication about how AI will affect employees would make them feel more confident about AI in the workplace.
Self-training is the most common source of AI training among employees, with 41% of workers saying they’ve learned to use AI tools themselves and just 15% crediting employer-sponsored training, a recent TrustedTech survey said.
Workflows are severely disrupted because of AI, Derler said. Managers should be aware that each employee is likely having a different experience with AI, and they should investigate use cases on an individual basis.
Derler said pressure to make AI work exists at every level of an organization — CIOs feel they need to prove ROI, managers feel they need to push their team to use AI and employees are trying to figure out what use makes sense to them. Without an environment where employees feel they can be transparent about what does and doesn’t work, organizations won’t succeed, Derler said.
“If you don’t allow people to see that, they will just give you a blanket answer: ‘Oh yeah, I’m using AI for everything, and everything is better,’” she said. “Which means you’re wasting time.
