2024 Digital Work Trends Report
The implementation of AI tools has quickly risen to the top of companies’ to-do lists, to drive efficiencies across the organization and increase employees’ productivity.
Slingshot’s 2024 Digital Work Trends report explores the use of AI in the workplace from the perspective of both employers and employees. Slingshot surveyed 250+ full-time U.S. employees and managers about how AI is impacting employees’ productivity, the effectiveness of employer-led education and training and current barriers to AI use in the workplace. The report also examines the readiness of companies’ data to support AI.
PART 1: AI IN THE WORKPLACE
Below are the findings for Part 1 of the 2024 Digital Work Trends report, which reveals a disconnect between the managerial expectations of AI in the workplace and how employees are using AI in their day-to-day work.
Employees aren’t using AI how employers intended.
Employers say they’ve implemented AI to support employees’ initial research for tasks and projects (62%) and help employees manage their workflow (58%) and analyze data (55%).
But, nearly two-thirds of employees (63%) are primarily leveraging AI to double check their work.
This disconnect between the expectations managers have of AI and how employees are actually using AI is likely due to a lack of transparency and education around AI in the workplace.
Most employees don’t feel completely educated or trained on AI.
Only 23% of employees feel completely educated and trained on AI.
While 72% of employees say their employees are at least adequately trained on AI, only 53% of employees believe they are.
There’s also a significant difference between genders on AI training: two-thirds (66%) of males feel they are adequately trained on AI, while only 44% of females say the same.
Employers believe AI is driving more productivity than employees are experiencing.
While more than half (60%) of employers believe that AI is significantly increasing employees’ productivity, only 44% of employees say they’re seeing a significant increase to their productivity.
Ten percent (10%) of employees say that AI is not increasing their productivity at all.
A majority of employees are getting at least one to two hours back in their work day with AI.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of employees say that AI saves them at least 1-2 hours a day, with 37% of employees saving 3-4 hours using AI tools.
Twenty-one percent (21%) of employees say they save less than an hour each day with AI, which likely means many employees are not using AI to its full potential.
More than one-fourth of workers are opting to spend their time saved with AI on non-work related tasks.
With the extra time in their work day, 63% of employees are reducing their overload of work to complete tasks in a timely manner, and 54% are using the time saved to re-prioritize and manage their workload more efficiently.
More than one-fourth of employees (26%) are using their extra time for non-related work tasks and activities.
Data readiness is a significant barrier to companies’ use of AI.
Nearly half (45%) of employers say they haven’t yet implemented AI because their company’s data—or information that tracks performance, process, people and profitability–is not ready.
Nineteen (19%) of employers note data readiness as the top reason AI has not made it to their organization.
For many companies, this lack of data readiness means their data is siloed across departments, platforms and channels, instead of one centralized location, and teams don’t have access to it. Without centralized data, AI cannot run.
Employees don’t believe their company’s data is ready to support AI.
Data is top of mind for employees too when it comes to AI: 33% of employers say their company would be ready to support AI if their company’s data was combed through for accuracy, and 32% say they need more training around data and AI before their company is ready.
