Half of all American adults in active employment now use some form of artificial intelligence in their role, according to a new Gallup poll. While that figure relates to the whole number of employees using AI in some form across a year, the active number of daily and weekly users using AI has risen over the last quarter, too.
This isn’t a huge surprise: AI adoption is booming across all major industries. Major tech companies involved in AI are investing heavily in its growth, with Google owner Alphabet doubling its expenditure on AI to $180 billion this year. While a recent survey of executives by the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that over 80% of AI-consuming companies see no productivity gains from using tools to improve productivity and cut employment costs, the steamroller shows no sign of slowing down.
Gallup’s survey shows how quickly AI tools are beginning to rework the workplace around them. It also suggests that AI’s adoption is causing a large proportion of disruption to companies, with 27% of employees at companies using AI reporting a large or very large disruption to their workplace over the last year. It isn’t definitive, however, with 12% of employees at non-AI firms also reporting similar disruption.
Paradoxically, a larger number of employees at firms adopting AI report their companies both expanding with new hires (34%, in comparison to 28% against non-AI firms) and doubling down on headcount reduction (23% versus 16%). Despite the disruption, 65% of employees at companies using artificial intelligence are positive about its impact on productivity and efficiency at work, with 16% extremely positive.
It’s a double-edged sword, however. Employees who responded did suggest that AI was useful with specific tasks, like summarizing information, but the benefits don’t reach as far as improving the workplace itself. 10% of respondents said AI was having a negative impact on their work, while 21% said AI was transforming how work “gets done” at their workplace.
This survey is further proof that, so far, AI continues to grow apace, leaving organizations of all sizes struggling to adapt to its growth and adoption. What this Gallup survey suggests is that, while individual employees have begun to find specific use cases for it to help them work, there’s still work to do for AI-positive employers to successfully transform the workplace around it.
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