Employees aren’t all rushing to embrace AI — but many of their bosses are.
A new global study shows that AI adoption varies by seniority, with 87% of executives using it on the job, compared with 57% of managers and 27% of employees. It also finds that executives are 45% more likely to use the technology on the job than Gen Zers, the youngest members of today’s workforce and the first generation to have grown up with the internet.
The findings are based on a survey of roughly 7,000 professionals age 18 and older who work in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand. It was commissioned by HR software company Dayforce and conducted online from July 22 to August 6.
The gap in AI adoption has created tension in some workplaces as company leaders and their employees disagree over the role AI should play.
For example, leadership at video game maker Electronic Arts has spent the past year urging its nearly 15,000 employees to use AI for just about everything, Business Insider recently reported. Yet some employees at the company said they’ve seen AI produce flawed code and other so-called hallucinations. Others said that creative staff are expected to train AI programs on their own work, and that they fear the technology will ultimately slash demand for talent.
Execs are experimenting more
That kind of division extends beyond the office. Outside of work, executives are still the most active adopters of AI, the Dayforce study found, with 85% stating they use it in their personal lives, versus 67% of managers and 49% of workers.
This means that the people at the top of the org chart are experimenting with AI in their daily lives at almost twice the rate of people who carry out organizations’ day-to-day work, Dayforce said.
The executives surveyed were also far more likely than the rest of the respondents to say they would have chosen a different career path had they known how AI would impact their role. The authors of the Dayforce report called that a warning sign, saying it raises the question of where executives’ AI agenda is leading.
Overall, the study concludes that leaders are racing to adopt AI at a faster clip than any previous technology shift, while the rest of the workforce struggles to keep up. To generate a return on their investment in AI, Dayforce said executives need to bring their managers and workers along for the ride, with training and by channeling their AI enthusiasm toward strategic use cases.
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