AI tools at work: bosses in investment frenzy, employees increasingly cautious

While the majority of managers want to invest in the trendy topic of AI, enthusiasm for the technology is waning among employees. At least that's what a global survey of knowledge workers conducted by Slack, the collaboration software provider belonging to Salesforce, suggests. Of the managers surveyed, 99 percent said that they would invest in AI this year, with 72 percent even talking about major expenditure. 97 percent also stated that they consider it urgent to integrate AI into business operations.

However, the perceived urgency and willingness to invest is not reflected in what is happening at employee level, according to the survey. For the first time since the market emergence of generative AI tools, Slack claims to have noticed a cooled mood and sluggish growth in acceptance among knowledge workers in its surveys.

Acceptance growth is sluggish, enthusiasm is falling

From September 2023 to March 2024, AI acceptance had climbed from around 20 percent to 32 percent. However, by the survey period in August, growth had stalled: In the USA, for example, the proportion of desk workers trying out AI had only risen from 32 percent to 33 percent, and in France from 31 percent to 33 percent. On average across countries, there was still growth of four percentage points to 36%.

At the same time, the use of technology is also losing its appeal for employees. This was particularly pronounced in France, where enthusiasm for using technology fell by 12 percentage points, from 53% to 41%. And in the USA, the rate fell by 9 percentage points, from 45% to 36%. Across all countries, the figure fell from 47% to 41%.

According to Slack, around 17,000 knowledge workers at various hierarchical levels in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA were surveyed for the sentiment survey.

AI as an embarrassment factor

The Slack study sees social factors as one of the reasons for the cooler mood in the workforce. There is a lack of social norms in its use, so that many employees are uncomfortable admitting to their managers that they have used AI for certain tasks. Across all countries, 48 percent stated this. The main reasons for this discomfort were the feeling that using generative AI felt like cheating (47%), as well as fears of being seen as less competent (46%) or even lazy (46%).

In Germany, it was mainly messages to bosses (31%) or colleagues at the same hierarchical level (27%), performance reviews (24%) or brainstorming sessions (22%) where respondents did not want to admit to using AI. On the other hand, only nine percent would be embarrassed to have AI help them with their coding.

Desk workers also see a gap between what they want from technology and the expected impact on their professional lives, according to the study. Most of them would like it to make their lives easier by giving them more time for meaningful activities. However, they suspected that AI tools would lead to higher work demands and more stress. There was also a lack of training in the use of AI: 61 percent had spent less than 5 hours learning how to use the tools.

(axk)