Since the advent of ChatGPT, the world’s biggest companies have scrambled over one another to talk up their adoption of cutting-edge AI tools.
However, a growing number of their employees are frustrated by their bosses’ “digital illiteracy”—holding them back from the productivity gains promised by the use of AI.
Research from Tech.io in 2023 found that two-thirds of business leaders had barely adopted new AI technology in their workplaces owing to a lack of awareness about its usefulness.
Now, workers say this reluctance is holding back their productivity. According to a survey by STEM advisory group SThree, employees say they are losing six hours a week to manual tasks that could easily be automated with the right tools.
Some 63% of employees felt their bosses weren’t adopting AI tools mainly because they were “digitally illiterate.”
A Dutch construction worker told SThree that a “[lack of access to the latest AI tools] has caused a noticeable drop in my motivation to tackle new challenges at work.”
A Japanese engineer, meanwhile, told the group: “I have to spend a significant amount of time on repetitive tasks that could be automated.”
Europe’s AI boom
Europe lags behind the U.S. in terms of large tech companies, with the biggest winners of the gen AI boom coming from the States in the form of Nvidia, Google, and Meta, to name a few.
However, there are signs that the region’s biggest companies, largely from industrial backgrounds, are taking steps to adopt AI into their workflows. Carmakers like Volkswagen have embraced chatbots for in-car entertainment systems and are looking at the use of AI for enhanced safety and automation.
Oil and gas giant Shell, meanwhile, has used AI to help with everything from optimizing drilling operations to predictive maintenance.
“The question for European companies is how they can leverage AI more aggressively, regardless of its origin. There is so much potential for them to take advantage of the billions of dollars being invested globally,” Mark Read CBE, CEO of advertising giant WPP, previously told Fortune.
SThree’s analysis, however, suggests employees in non-tech sectors aren’t getting the access they need to the latest automated technology.
There is evidence that workers are beginning to use the technology in secret. A recent report from Salesforce found that one in five workers is an “underground” AI user, hiding his or her activity from colleagues and bosses because of uncertainty over rules and expectations about using the technology in the workplace.
The research provides a counterbalance to the rhetoric that employees are fearful of new AI tools replacing them and keen not to see their employers adopt the technology.
Customer service workers in particular are fearful that AI will replace them, given tech groups like Klarna, which is hoping to trim its workforce by 1,800 with the help of AI.
“Of course, worries about job security around technology advancements are real, and leaders shouldn’t ignore them,” said Timo Lehne, CEO of SThree.
“But our findings imply that leaders are too hesitant and need to embrace AI in the way their teams already have. If they don’t, they will become a stumbling block for their organization’s future growth and a source of increasing employee frustration.”
