{"id":51044,"date":"2025-02-03T00:02:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T06:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/?p=51044"},"modified":"2025-01-31T17:29:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T23:29:21","slug":"are-your-leaders-underestimating-employees-willingness-to-use-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/are-your-leaders-underestimating-employees-willingness-to-use-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Your Leaders Underestimating Employees\u2019 Willingness to Use AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When artificial intelligence (AI) was first introduced to many workplaces, in the form of ChatGPT or a similar system, many employees initially expressed misgivings. \u201cWill an AI bot replace me?\u201d they wondered. Or \u201cWill my hours be reduced to part-time if the company\u2019s decision-makers see I work much faster with help from AI?\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Employees Already Love AI<\/h2>\n

Like me, however, many of those employees who felt trepidation at first are now onboard with AI. That\u2019s because it makes life about a million times easier. Even if you\u2019re philosophically a Luddite who\u2019s skeptical about all new technology, it\u2019s hard to resist advancement that lessens your burdens.<\/p>\n

A recent McKinsey survey<\/a> reported that it isn\u2019t employees but rather organization leaders who may be holding up widespread use of AI\u2014by underestimating how much their employees use it and how open they would be to using it even more.<\/p>\n

According to McKinsey: \u201cIn our survey, nearly all employees (94 percent) and C-suite leaders (99 percent) report having some level of familiarity with generative AI (genAI) tools. Nevertheless, business leaders underestimate how extensively their employees are using gen AI. C-suite leaders estimate that only 4 percent of employees use genAI for at least 30 percent of their daily work, when, in fact, that percentage is three times greater, as self-reported by employees. And while only a total of 20 percent of leaders believe employees will use genAI for more than 30 percent of their daily tasks within a year, employees are twice as likely (47 percent) to believe they will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fostering Honesty About AI Usage<\/h2>\n

One barrier to getting leaders\u2014who control the organization budget\u2014to be all in on AI is to prove to them that employees are using AI extensively and would like to use it more. This is one of those situations where traditional surveys may not work. Employees may be hesitant to admit how much they use AI for the reasons I cited earlier. If the technology is so great, will they still be needed?<\/p>\n

It’s a situation that requires collecting the information anonymously, so you know when responses are tallied that the person reporting is an employee, and possibly the level of their role in the organizational hierarchy and the kind of work they do, but nothing more. The employee must feel comfortable that you\u2019re not going to use their responses as evidence to eliminate their job.<\/p>\n

Another approach is to invite an AI expert to speak to your employees and see how much they engage with the speaker during the question-and-answer session, including the specific things they are curious about and the kinds of comments they make.<\/p>\n

Try a Custom, Secure AI Portal with Tracking Capability<\/h2>\n

Yet another approach is to create a custom, secure AI system for your organization, such as a customized ChatGPT, which you need organizational credentials to log into and use. That customized system provides the ability to keep all the information input by employees secure, while also giving you the chance to track who is using the system most, how much employees overall are using the system, and even the types of queries and tasks they are most often using it for.<\/p>\n

My friends and I were concerned at first about the possible introduction of AI in our organizations. We joked initially about just logging in once a day to make the organizations think we were using it. Now, we joke about how the technology even helps with the emotional dilemmas of the workplace.<\/p>\n

One friend even has input: \u201cHow would Peggy from Mad Men<\/em> handle this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Incentivize with Development Opportunities<\/h2>\n

Incentivizing employees with development opportunities, which will be available if they can free up enough of their time, is also an approach that could encourage employees to use AI more and be upfront about their use of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSally, we have some trade shows coming up in Europe, in Paris and Milan, this year. If you can get ahead of your workload, I\u2019d love for you to participate in those shows for us. I think the new AI system could help you.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Sally then might pipe up enthusiastically that she already uses the system and will make a point of seeing how she can optimize it even further.<\/p>\n

When AI is openly discussed as an advantage for both employees and<\/em> leaders, everyone can get on the same page about adopting it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When AI is openly discussed as an advantage for both employees and leaders, everyone can get on the same page about adopting it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-51044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAre Your Leaders Underestimating Employees\u2019 Willingness to Use AI?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When AI is openly discussed as an advantage for both employees and leaders, everyone can get on the same page about adopting it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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