New Zoom research suggests business leaders are more optimistic about AI's impact and potential than employees.
In a new survey commissioned by Zoom and conducted by Morning Consult, which questioned over 11,000 global leaders and employees, Zoom highlights that leaders are "all in" on AI. However, the tech giant also underlined a disparity between what leaders appreciate about AI and workers' views on the tools. Over four-fifths of leaders said they were excited about AI (82 percent), compared to just 57 percent of workers.
Zoom's blog on the survey said:
That sentiment gap also translates to adoption: 73 percent of leaders said they use AI at least a few times a week, compared to just 32 percent of employees. And 23 percent of employees say they don’t use AI at all (at work or for personal use)."
In contrast to leaders, where almost three-quarters of leaders say leveraging AI saves them one or more hours a day, less than half of employees said using AI tools at work saves them at least one hour a day (46 percent).
"The lack of adoption could explain employees’ perceived drawbacks related to technology, with employees’ top three concerns including job loss, data security, and accuracy," Zoom's research wrote. "This shows just how imperative it is for leaders to take the opportunity to educate employees and equip them with the right training to help them understand and adopt AI."
What Were the Report's Other Findings?
The report reflected that most leaders were optimistic about AI's positive influence in the workplace.
Exactly three-quarters of leaders who use AI say it helps their teams collaborate better and also that it helps them make better decisions. Seventy-four percent of AI-using leaders say the tools help them work better when colleagues are not in the same location.
"Leaders whose teams are using AI reported many benefits, especially around collaboration," Zoom's report said. "This may be because AI can automate or aid in certain tasks like sharing notes and action items after meetings, composing messages, and organising information."
The report noted that those leaders and employees who don't use AI were uncertain about how much time it could help them save during an average workday. Fifty-five percent of employees and 50 percent of leaders who don’t leverage AI said they didn’t know, illustrating a "huge opportunity cost for AI avoiders", according to Zoom, given training this group about AI's benefits could facilitate greater adoption.
