‘Gen AI helps me feel confident in my role,’ says 82% of BCG consultants

In a recent experiment using 480 of its own consultants, BCG set out to better understand employees’ use of Gen AI.

To achieve this, the company aimed to answer two main questions: Should Gen AI be used to help professionals perform tasks outside their area of expertise? And, how can companies enable their workforce to take on new tasks with the help of this technology?

To find the answers, BCG asked the consultants to perform three short tasks: Write Python code to merge and clean two data sets; build a predictive model for sports investing; and to validate and correct statistical analysis outputs from ChatGPT. These three tasks were designed to mimic a common data-science pipeline. 

In an exclusive conversation with Lisa Krayer, Principal at Boston Consulting Group, UNLEASH explores how BCG’s consultants are impacted by Gen AI, and the impact it has on employee productivity. 

Creating the “complete picture” with Gen AI

Gen AI has become known for its productivity benefits, enabling employees to focus more time on important tasks, rather than repetitive admin chores. 

So much so that BCG’s research found that more than 80% of participants reported that Gen AI enhanced their problem-solving skills, allowing them to achieve better outputs, faster.

However, during the final test, participants that did not use Gen AI were found to perform better than those that did use the tool. 

These findings suggest that Gen AI is in fact better for employees performance and productivity than as a standalone learning resource.

“One of the most interesting findings from our study is that the impact of Gen AI is not just an enhancement in productivity, but a fundamental shift in what workers can achieve,” Krayer explains.

“We all know that knowledge work – such as consulting, software development, data science, marketing, and recruiting – is going to look different in the future, given the enhancements in AI. 

While there is some anxiety around the nature of this change, our study reveals that Gen AI can be a tool that equips the workforce to meet changing demands.”

In a similar study, Adobe found that 30% of employees named time constraints as the primary challenge when completing document-related tasks.

As a result, almost a quarter of those surveyed stated they would be more inclined to adopt AI if the tool could guarantee time-saving benefits.

More specifically, 80% would consider adopting AI technologies if it could save them 10 or more hours each week.

However, Krayer, who is also a Co-author of BCG’s study, highlights that how employees use Gen AI – and the benefit it can bring – greatly depends on the capabilities of the tools in question, which, as she expresses, are “evolving rapidly”. 

In fact, 82% of consultants that regularly use AI agreed with the statement ‘Gen AI helps me feel confident in my role’.

“Companies should create benchmarks that assess which tasks within their operations could benefit from Gen AI augmentation and regularly update their employees on the outcomes of these benchmarks.”

To encourage this, the right training and support must be provided to ensure employees understand how to effectively use Gen AI in their daily work. 

For HR leaders, this means focusing on creating a culture of continuous learning and innovation, where employees are encouraged to explore new ways of working with AI tools.

Concluding, Krayer says: “HR leaders should recognize that Gen AI has the potential to broaden the skill sets of their workforce, enabling them to adapt to new roles and challenges more quickly.”