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A new global survey of over 3,000 business and IT leaders released by Avanade, the leading Microsoft solutions provider, reveals the workplace impact of artificial intelligence (AI) for organisations and how to safeguard roles as AI is scaled.

Overall, employees at all job levels are positive about AI and are excited about its potential to help them as a copilot at work. By the end of 2024, AI will offer more than efficiency gains, with employees expecting it to help inspire creative ideas and innovation. This notion of AI supercharging human intelligence is contrary to hyped fears of human replacement—with nearly two-thirds (64%) across industries believing that AI will maintain or increase the number of human roles at their organisation in 2024, and most expecting headcount to increase by up to 9%.

Digging deeper, confidence levels regarding how organisations and their leaders are prioritising actions to ready their people, processe,s and platforms for AI vary significantly by industry, country, role levels, and job titles.

How AI-ready are Organisations and Their People?

Most employees (95%) are optimistic about AI and its impact. However, their responses also suggest that organiAations may be overlooking how to protect their people when adopting AI responsibly and effectively.

• Less than half (48%) of organiSations have put in place a complete set of specific guidelines/policies for responsible AI, which is lower than the 52% of business and IT leaders who answered this question in March 2023.
• Almost all employees (96%) are confident their organisations and IT teams have the knowledge and resources to scale AI. But just over half (52%) say their organisation has complete human capital and workforce planning processes in place to safeguard headcount as generative AI is scaled.
• About half (49%) of employees admit they do not have the utmost confidence that their organization’s risk management processes are adequate for an enterprise-wide technical integration of generative AI.

How Will Roles Change with Generative AI Tools Like Microsoft Copilot?

Most employees expect AI tools like Microsoft Copilot will help them be more efficient, innovative, and empowered in their roles. But employees are currently unequipped to work with these tools and seize their many benefits. Employers don’t have the right mix of skilled AI talent available to achieve their goals and organizations need to invest in upskilling, reskilling and continuing education for employees to undertake AI projects successfully.

• Almost two-thirds (63%) of respondents said employees will need some new skills or a completely new set of skills to work with generative AI tools like Microsoft Copilot in their day-to-day roles by the end of 2024. This sentiment changes among the C-suite, where over a third (41%) of CEOs believe their employees will need fewer skills since their AI copilot will do more of their work.

• While there is general optimism among employees, almost all (92%) believe their organization needs to shift to an AI-first operating model in the next 12 months to stay competitive and meet customer expectations.
• Almost eight in ten (79%) anticipate that generative AI tools like Microsoft Copilot will impact up to 20 hours, or half, of their work week.

How Organisations Are Continually Unlocking Value and Growth with AI

While majority of organisations are increasing their digital investments to accelerate their AI journey, those investments are not equally prioritised across industries despite data being the bedrock of AI to produce accurate, useful results.

• Nonprofits, utilities companies, and government agencies ranked data and analytics platforms as one of their lowest investment priorities in 2024. In comparison, banks, retailers, and energy companies have identified data platforms as their top investment priority.
• While both workplace platforms (like Microsoft 365 and Teams) and security/cyber resilience are likely to see investment, IT employees most cited their data and analytics platform (such as Databricks or Microsoft Fabric) which unifies their data and analytics under one digital roof, among top priorities to scale AI in 2024.
• However, less than half (48%) of employees completely trust its results and may struggle to derive value from AI.

“While businesses and IT executives are enthusiastic about driving business value with AI, the findings also reflect the increasing interest and curiosity we are witnessing from leaders and their people globally,” said Florin Rotar, Chief AI Officer at Avanade. “Not only do businesses need to take action to ready their people with the essential skills needed to utilize AI effectively, but now is the time for leaders to prepare for an AI-first future by crafting well-defined and responsible strategies.”

“As generative AI developments continue to reshape our economy and redefine our relationship with technology across Southeast Asia, organisations can prioritise building an AI-first culture that is inherently people first. This will be pivotal in enabling leaders to responsibly harness the transformative power of AI to human ingenuity and build a future where humans and AI can succeed and coexist in harmony,” said Bhavya Kapoor, Southeast Asia Managing Director at Avanade.

Download the full report: Avanade AI Readiness Report.

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