Workers fear AI job displacement, but embrace its productivity benefits
About 45.1% of employees agree that a personal proficiency in AI will be critical to their job security in the future.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the workplace and is clearly here to stay, but employees have many different opinions surrounding its implementation. Existing data found that 30% of workers worldwide fear that AI might replace their jobs within the next 3 years, but a new report by Acrolinx discovered that employees still recognize its benefits, which continue to drive its adoption in the workplace.
As the influence of AI continues to grow among various industries, the study found that 17.9% of employees strongly agree and 45.1% agree that a personal proficiency in AI will be critical to their job security in the future. New technologies clearly continue to play a role in improving workplace efficiency and productivity.
According to the study, 67.3% of respondents said their primary motivation for using AI was to improve productivity. Another 49.4% said they use the technology due to interest in AI innovation trend and 47.5% said they use it to streamline processes.
Notably, the study found that only 6.8% of respondents said they do not use AI tools – emphasizing the vast adoption of AI technology. Also important to note, however, is that 24.7% of respondents cited competitive pressure as a reason for using AI tools in the workplace.
Despite the reasons for adopting AI, the study cites that by 2025, AI is projected to power a staggering 95% of customer interactions.
Surprisingly, both customers and businesses seem comfortable with this large-scale adoption of new technology. The study found that 53.8% of respondents said they were either “comfortable” or “extremely comfortable” with businesses using AI technology in their interactions with customers.
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While 58.6% of respondents still believe there are risks associated with the use of AI technology, executives polled in the PwC Trust Survey ranked AI-threats as being less dangerous than cyber risks such as data breaches and ransomware.
“This doesn’t imply that AI risks are negligible,” the study said. “Rather, it indicates that many business leaders may not fully understand the potential challenges of generative AI, including the creation of harmful or misleading content, deep fakes, misinformation, exposure of personal information, and illegal use of copyrighted materials.”