Who’s afraid of artificial intelligence (AI) when it can actually help you at work?
Despite general distrust of AI, 90% of workers are warming up to AI and believe it will “play a significant role in increasing transparency and accountability in organizations,” according to a new Workday Inc. report, “Elevating Human Potential: The AI Skills Revolution,” released Tuesday.
About four in five (83%) believe AI will not only elevate the importance of uniquely human skills and enhance human creativity but foster new forms of economic value, according to Workday. Such sentiment signals growing positive vibes around AI adoption in the workplace, compared with earlier Workday-commissioned research: Only 52% of workers welcomed AI in the office a year ago.
“The conversation around AI often focuses on fear and job loss, but we see it as an incredible opportunity,” Jim Stratton, chief technology officer at Workday, said in a statement. “By embracing AI for good, we can elevate what makes us uniquely human – our creativity, our empathy, our ability to connect – and build a workplace where these skills drive success. Our research shows that workers are ready to embrace this possibility as reality.”
For now, the top three uses of AI today are data analysis (51%), fraud detection and security monitoring (43%) and HR and recruiting (39%), according to Workday.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the most active users of AI also happen to be the most optimistic about its benefits. A whopping 93% of active AI users agreed the technology lets them focus on higher-level responsibilities such as strategy and problem solving.
“AI is driving us towards a future where we can harness our innate human skills to connect, create, and innovate,” Sadie Bell, vice president of people systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., said in a statement. “This isn’t just about efficiency and problem-solving; it’s about unlocking our potential to build a future that prioritizes skills like empathy, ingenuity, and our shared humanity.”
Where employees and leaders disagree, however, is on the growing need for human connection in the age of AI. Some 83% of employees believe it necessary, while just 65% of managers agree. Human skills such as empathy, ethical decision-making, relationship building, and conflict resolution can’t be programmed into a bot just yet, leaving people to do the really hard stuff in an increasingly AI-driven economy, say workers, labor leaders, and scientists.
Regardless, American workers don’t have much of a say in the matter as agentic AI becomes a corporate catchphrase as well as a staple in the office and at home this year and beyond. Nearly every major tech company — ranging from Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and ServiceNow Inc. to Salesforce Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. — are pushing low-level AI assistants to sift through emails, transcribe meetings, brainstorm, and do some heavy numbers crunching. The resulting digital workforce is designed to enhance operational efficiency while freeing up humans to be more creative.
And it will require plenty of investment in IT restructuring, as well as training of workers to collaborate with AI. Nearly half of employees (45%) will need AI-related upskilling within three years, according to IBM research.
Meanwhile, upskilling remains a concern.
Some 63% of employees believe their current training programs could be significantly improved, according to a survey of 1,200 employees in the U.S. by TalentLMS.
