Your boss is probably utilizing AI more than you are.
Almost twice as many leaders are using AI as individual contributors, according to a new Gallup poll that was made public on Monday. The poll revealed that, in contrast to 16% of individual contributors, 33% of leaders, or those who identified as “managers of managers,” utilize AI regularly, meaning a few times a week or more.
Leaders are probably under more pressure to consider AI and how it might boost productivity and effectiveness, Jim Harter, Gallup’s principal scientist for workplace management and wellness, noted.
More CEOs are likely experimenting with it because they see its urgency and perceive it as a possible threat to competition, Harter said.
The data point was one of several conclusions drawn from Gallup’s poll on workplace AI adoption, which also included:
- The percentage of US workers who use AI at work at least sometimes has risen from 21% to 40% in the last two years.
- Since 2023, frequent AI use has risen from 11% to 19%.
- AI usage has risen from 4% to 8% each day during the last 12 months.
- In a poll, 15% of workers stated that it was “very or somewhat likely that automation, robots, or AI” will result in their job losses within five years.
- While 44% of workers stated that their organization has begun integrating AI, just 22% reported that they had communicated a plan or strategy.
- For the use of AI at work, 30% of workers stated that their organization has “general guidelines or formal policies” in place.
- An further 16 percent of AI-using employees “strongly agree” that their company’s AI technologies are beneficial to their work.
The previous two years have seen an overall increase in the adoption of AI, but not all industries have benefited equally from this growth. AI usage “increased primarily for white-collar roles,” according to the Gallup research, with 27% of respondents reporting they use AI often at work, a 12% rise from the previous year.
The percentage of white-collar professionals that frequently use AI is 50% in the IT sector, followed by professional services (34%), and finance (32%). Gallup’s research shows that regular AI use among front-line and industrial workers has decreased from 11% in 2023 to 9% this year.
According to the survey, workers in sectors like technology, retail, and finance are more likely than others to think AI would steal their jobs in the future, but overall, worries about AI displacing occupations have not grown over the past two years.
The respondents said that “unclear use case or value proposition” was the most frequent obstacle to AI adoption, implying that businesses could not be offering clear direction.
According to the survey, employees who say they “strongly agree” that leadership has provided a clear plan for utilizing AI are three times more likely to feel “very prepared to work with AI” and 2.6 times more likely to feel comfortable using it at work.
Gallup’s Harter told that in certain circumstances, training is required to utilize AI as a supplement to other more accurate text analysis methods.
Although businesses are increasingly creating strategies for using AI, Harter stated that “there’s still a long way to go,” and that it might not be a one-and-done strategy.
According to Harter, they will need to get ongoing training on its usage because it will develop on its own.
