A survey found that seven out of ten companies currently use AI for their jobs.

Diving briefs:

• AI is integrated into most workplaces, with nearly 67% of companies using it for work-related purposes. This is according to a recent survey of 1,000 full-time knowledge workers by the workplace technology platform OWLLAB, in collaboration with PULSE.
• Almost half of survey respondents (46%) said they are either heavily using or somewhat dependent on AI in the workplace, Owllab CEO Frank Weishaupt reported in a May 8 post. They also said they used AI primarily for administrative tasks such as scheduling and calendar management (35%), data crunching (33%), and writing content such as emails and reports (30%).
• Furthermore, almost a quarter of knowledge workers (24%) say employers strongly support the use of AI, and surveys say they provide tools, training and clear guidelines.

Dive Insights:

Owllab's findings show significant changes since last year. Most notably, employers are proactively encouraging employees to use AI, Weishautt said. Research shows that only 4% of knowledge workers said they were discouraged by the use of AI.

AI helps employees achieve more outcomes, as Weishaupt observed, but it could also come with issues that employers should be prepared to address, recent research shows.

Having a clear corporate policy on AI use and having employees understand them is essential to keeping these issues at bay, a KPMG survey released in April highlights.

For example, 67% of employees who responded to the KPMG survey used AI to increase productivity, 57% admitted that they made mistakes in their work due to AI errors, and 44% admitted that they were “deliberately inappropriately used.” About half said they used AI without knowing whether it was permitted or not, and an additional 46% said they allowed to upload sensitive company data to public platforms.

A March report from AI Vendor Writers and Research Group's Workplace Intelligence pointed to deeper issues. In the study, most executives say that the adoption of generative AI creates conflict and friction within the organization.

This friction has led to splits between IT teams and other businesses, and between executives and employees, with “robust change management, improved vendor quality, and increased collaboration between IT and other departments,” said the writer's chief strategy officer.

Employers may also want to be aware of how employees use AI during training, a January report from Ed-Tech's company Moodle proposed.

More than half of US employees have told Moodle that they will complete mandatory workplace training, including answering difficult questions and assisting with specific questions (19%) using AI-related tools.

Additionally, 12% said they even had AI tools adopt the entire training, the study found.