Slack CEO: 2 in 3 workers not yet using AI at work

Inflation and the economy are not the top concern for employers. According to new data from Slack, AI innovation now tops the list of C-Suite worries.

The communications giant surveyed 10,000 desk workers across the world and found that 96% of executives now feel the urgency to incorporate AI into business operations – this urgency has increased seven-fold in the last six months.

UNLEASH was invited to a press briefing to discuss the Workforce Index findings. Talking to journalists, Slack CEO Denise Dresser shared that this moment in AI “couldn’t be more exciting”. The questions that CEOs, CIOs, CFOs are wrestling with is where to start, and how to get started.

The good news is employees are getting on board with AI, and there is enthusiasm from executives.

Slack found that AI use by desk workers is up 23% since January and 60% since September, and they’re reaping the rewards.

81% of AI users saw a productivity boom – Slack’s SVP of Research and Analytics Christina Janzer described these results as “incredible”, especially as organizations are still early on in their journey.

But the benefits are even bigger than productivity – Slack’s Workforce Index shows that employees using AI had a better experience at work.

Their work-life balance was 18% higher, they were 29% more likely to feel highly passionate about work and were 23% better at managing stress.

Ultimately, they were 24% more satisfied at work.

Janzer noted that these employee experience benefits are often overlooked, but it is a really exciting correlation for the future of AI at work.

Unfortunately, the picture isn’t all rosy; the ongoing challenge for organizations is that two in three workers have still not used AI at work.

This is because of trust issues – only 7% see AI as being completely trustworthy for work – and because only 15% think they’ve had enough education and training to confidently use AI effectively at work.

For Janzer, this shows that “introducing the technology is not enough” to spur adoption of AI.

This data is a call to action for leaders to step up and make a change if they truly want to continue to reap the transformative rewards of AI at work.

How to set employees up for success with AI

The question that remains is what type of changes do they need to make to encourage adoption and set employees up for success with AI.

First of all, they need to establish clear usage guidelines of AI – 37% of desk workers told Slack that their employer has no AI policy, but when workers understand how and when to use AI, they are 6x more likely to have experimented with AI at work.

Within these guardrails, Janzer called on organizations to encourage employees to experiment with AI – “get their hands dirty” – and figure out where it benefits them. To do this, they need to be given the time and space to do this in their busy working weeks.

The next step is education and training – the more training workers have, the more likely they are to use AI tools; Slack’s data shows that those who are trained to use AI are 19x more likely to report productivity benefits from the technology.

Training also helps with the trust issue – workers who are trained in AI are seven-times more likely to trust AI tools to help them at work.

The importance of training to encourage employees to get on board with AI – and the convince them their jobs are not at risk – is also a theme of IBM’s recent CEO study.

It’s time for AI work redesign

However, during the press briefing, Janzer calls on organizations to go even further than these incremental changes, and instead think about transforming the world of work if they want to reap the rewards of AI.

This mirrors conclusions from a recent global study from Mercer, where two in five of respondents said that work was fundamentally broken and to stay ahead of curve small changes won’t be sufficient.

Janzer shared the worrying data that there is a gender gap on AI, and it is bigger among Gen Z workers.

Across all generations, 35% of men had experimented with AI, compared to 29% of women – among Gen Z, the difference between the two genders was 25%.

Answering a question from UNLEASH in the press briefing, Janzer shared that Slack doesn’t know the reasoning behind the gender, but it is what organizations do about it that matters.

Organizations need to be aware of this gap, and make sure that AI doesn’t further marginalize women in the workforce, or that men get a competitive edge.

Janzer adds that the key here is putting extra effort into making sure everyone is empowered with AI.

Another concerning finding from the report is that desk workers estimate they spend a third of their day on low value work, like unnecessary meetings, low-value emails and excessive paperwork, plus 64% said they were burnout at least one a month and a third were regularly stressed.

The ideal situation is that AI minimizes these busy work tasks, and that enables people to focus on more meaningful work, but when Slack asked workers what they would prioritize with the time they got back from AI, ‘more admin’ topped the list, while innovation, learning and skills fell to the bottom.

It’s a weird finding – but the reason behind it, according to Janzer, is that humans are programmed to do the work they think they will rewarded and recognized for. Because of the way that productivity is measured in organizations today – by inputs, not outcomes – it is no surprise that employees want to show that they are busy.

So, Janzer called on organizations to really rethink productivity and focus on outcomes (not inputs), otherwise they are not going to unlock true productivity benefits from AI.

Slack’s CEO Dresser chimed it that there’s still so much for employers to unlock with AI – it’s time to move away from inputs, and focusing on what Janzer terms the ‘work of work’, and towards transforming how we work for the better.

Using tools that are intuitive, in the flow of work and require little training is the gold standard.

Human-first design is essential to getting employees on board with AI.