A recent report by Microsoft, Maximising the AI opportunity, shows UK leaders are aware of the benefits AI could bring, but are still struggling with up-skilling employees and implementing new tech.
The survey of 1,002 leaders and 4,020 employees from UK businesses, shows organisations already on the AI journey are outperforming other organisations by 5% on factors like productivity, performance, and business outcomes. It also reveals those underpinning their AI with processes around values and ethics outperform those that are not by 9%.
However, the research shows there’s a clear gap between attitude and action. While 67% of leaders and 59% of employees say they are open to experimenting with AI at work, around half of employees and leaders (51% and 49% respectively) say they are not currently using AI technologies. More than a third (37%) of leaders admit they are not focused on AI at all.
Up-skilling workforce for AI
While 41% of leaders feel their current business model will cease to exist within the next five years – up from 38% in 2017 – and 46% believe it is worth re-training their current workforce, almost more than a third (32%) are unsure about how to start doing so.
What is also concerning is 30% of employees are worried their job could be taken by AI, yet 51% are not actively learning new skills to keep up with future changes to the work as a result of AI.
Cindy Rose, CEO, Microsoft UK, said: “Any organisation still unconvinced about the need to change and translate awareness into action need look no further than the headline findings of this report. Namely, organisations that are investing in AI are already significantly outperforming those who are not.”
