Visitors will check out Intel’s large-scale language model at the 8th China International Import Expo in Shanghai on November 6th. Chinese daily newspaper
Chinese companies are at the global forefront in implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace, and are optimistic about its potential due to widespread enthusiasm for AI among ambitious young employees with digital skills, according to a Boston Consulting Group report.
The report noted that the Asia-Pacific region is leading the way in AI consideration and adoption globally, with China standing out at the forefront, with 87% of respondents reporting that they frequently use AI tools, higher than the global average of 72%.
The strong adoption trend spans all job levels, including front-line employees, mid-level managers, and senior executives, and reflects a culture of bottom-up exploration and a high degree of openness and adaptability to new technologies, the report said.
According to the report, 78% of all respondents in the APAC region use AI at work at least weekly, compared to 72% globally. Only 51 percent of the world’s frontline workers regularly use AI, but that number jumps to 70 percent in APAC.
The growing use of AI in the region is accompanied by growing enthusiasm, with 60 percent of respondents in Asia Pacific feeling optimistic about AI’s potential, compared to 52 percent globally.
However, there are inherent tensions in the use of AI, as increased adoption raises concerns about future job losses. Employees in Asia Pacific are adopting AI at a faster pace than employees in other regions, but more employees fear losing their jobs, with 52 percent of respondents expressing that concern, compared to 41 percent globally.
The report surveyed more than 4,500 employees across a variety of industries across nine countries in the APAC region.
Jeff Walters, managing director and senior partner at BCG, said the speed at which China’s workforce has embraced AI is remarkable, highlighting that this bottom-up wave of enthusiasm driven by front-line employees is becoming a unique advantage for China’s AI innovation.
The report says China’s high adoption rate of AI makes concerns about its use more evident. Only 18% of frontline workers in China say they receive clear guidance from management on how to use AI, indicating that company management’s strategic vision needs to catch up with employee practices.
Moreover, most Chinese companies are still in the adoption stage of AI tools, and only a few have started redesigning workflows or adjusting jobs, indicating a huge amount of productivity potential that remains to be unlocked.
“Competitiveness in the AI era lies not in the proliferation of tools, but in the systematic and strategic application of tools,” said Jeffrey Wu, managing director and partner at BCG, adding that relatively few front-line employees feel they are receiving clear guidance from company executives.
The report says that as APAC companies continue to lead the world in AI adoption and innovation, they must adapt to the growing acceptance of AI by employees and the innovation promised by AI agents, and redesign their workflows to accommodate the transition.
Additionally, CEOs must drive change both from the top down, through approaches such as massive reskilling, continually evaluating and upgrading AI tools, formalizing governance, and setting a clear AI vision, and from the bottom up, by closing the skills gap in middle management while empowering digitally native frontline workers.
Pan Helin, a member of the Information and Communication Economic Expert Committee, part of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said the rapid adoption of digital technologies, represented by AI, will give new impetus to the country’s economic growth and lead to accelerated digitalization and intelligentization of enterprises.
China boasts a large number of well-educated engineering talent and AI experts, improved digital infrastructure such as 5G and computing networks, large amounts of data, and growing innovation capacity, which provide a solid foundation for the training and deployment of AI models, he added.
fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn
