LinkedIn shared some new insights into the adoption of modern artificial intelligence tools in the workforce and how businesses are benefiting from the latest AI tools.
LinkedIn is very keen to showcase the benefits of generative AI, given that its parent company Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in AI development, but the data also shows that modern AI tools are not as innovative as some AI industry players are trying to present, and that in many ways there are limits to the value of AI tools.
First, LinkedIn’s report examines AI adoption in general and how B2B marketers in particular are incorporating the latest AI models.
So, as you might expect, many professionals are using AI in their daily work, but many are still developing how to use it.
According to LinkedIn: “Only 32% of respondents in our latest benchmark survey rated their expertise as ‘very good,’ which remains flat from last year’s report. Even leadership is lacking, with only 38% of CMOs saying they are very confident in their AI skills.”
According to LinkedIn, this highlights the need for further AI training, which can be facilitated through LinkedIn Learning courses.
LinkedIn also lists the most common AI skills added to member profiles.
We also talk about how AI is improving our own ad targeting tools through innovations like buyer groups. Services that use AI to identify and target decision makers involved in corporate purchasing, or predictive audiences that analyze engagement to improve targeting effectiveness.
But what is interesting overall is that AI analytics is changing, based on growing business feedback, from one of the most transformative and most radical upheavals in history, to a more sober view that suggests that while AI tools can certainly improve productivity, they cannot, in most cases, replace actual human expertise and skills.
Have you noticed that the latest wave of AI tools is significantly increasing your professional productivity?
Again, despite the hype around generative AI, research reports are mixed.
For example, the following studies were conducted: bain and company While 95% of US companies are using generative AI, 29% of them indicate they are uncertain about its ROI. According to another study published in The Economist, 42% of companies While companies that had deployed AI tools have since abandoned them, another company published this week by Harvard Business Review found that: Rather than saving time, AI tools actually increase the workload of employees and, while they can increase productivity, they can also lead to burnout.
So while the bigger story we are hearing is about the huge potential of AI tools to change the way we live and replace human workers with machines, in reality the situation is more nuanced, and neither the absolute benefits of generative AI nor how to effectively deploy these tools are yet clear.
Fundamentally, AI tools are complementary, not substitutes. While many CEOs roll their eyes with excitement at the thought of reducing costs by replacing staff with AI tools, the truth is that AI tools are only truly effective, at least in their current iteration, when they are placed in the hands of people who already know the task inside and out.
These experts can understand the output, check for errors in the output, and refine the data into something usable. However, the idea that AI tools will reliably get the job done is not realistic. At least not yet.
