Survey results show workers are more productive if they co-pilot with generative AI

Australian workers think generative AI is ‘miraculous’ and want more of it in their jobs, yet few feel they have the skills to make the most of it, according to a new survey.

Australian workers think generative AI is “miraculous” and want more of it in their jobs, yet only about 10 per cent say they are experts in its use and about 30 per cent say they are “just getting by” with the revolutionary technology.

According to a new survey, the nation’s workforce is lagging in digital proficiency, yet 82 per cent of respondents say digital tech is essential in their day-to-day work.

The Future of Digital Work survey from Adobe covered more than 500 knowledge workers and found that generative AI was central to improved productivity as well as attracting top talent.

Adobe director Chandra Sinnathamby said workers were attracted to companies that provide the correct digital tools for them to do good work and employers needed to understand this in a tight labour market.

“A lot of workers are looking to how they can do their best work and not get bogged down by low-value tasks or mundane tasks,” he said. “AI frees up time for a lot of the workers to focus on high-value tasks and be more productive.”

He said the challenge was for companies to understand how they could use AI and ensure employees could use it.

“That is where there seems to be a gap,” Mr Sinnathamby, said. “How do we help them become more familiar with the technology and then really optimise and leverage it to get the most out of it?

“Our view is that generative AI (and employees) co-pilot, whether it’s for document creation, or document content creation, or image creation or video creation.”

He said it was important for governments to set the foundation frameworks and governance models for organisations to use AI “because that drives adoption, and that gives trust and I think trust is critical with digital technologies”.

“Government needs to create that environment where it’s safe to use AI and citizens and organisations trust the services that are coming on board,” Mr Sinnathamby said.

“We’ve always thought that AI needs to be transparent, there needs to be accountability, there needs to be authenticity.

“It’s not something we’ve just come out with recently … back in 2019 we came up with the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) where any piece of content that was generated through AI (has attached) content credentials to it so you can actually see how the content was created, who did it, and everyone has clear line of sight of where that content came from.”

Adobe argues the best approach is to not try to catch what’s fake but to “give people a way to show their work so they can prove what’s real”.

Its tool, Content Credentials, shows where an image comes from and if it has been modified along the way.

CAI now has more than 1000 companies signed up, including Universal Music Group, BBC, Reuters and Getty Images.

The report found leaders (88 per cent) and employees (87 per cent) overwhelmingly agreed poor technology tools could hurt productivity. Two thirds of leaders said they lost two to four hours a day because of poor technology.

Respondents said generative AI accelerated work processes, eliminated redundant tasks, and allowed more time for engaging and meaningful work, and high-quality output.

However, only 22 per cent of respondents reported that their companies used generative AI while 58 per cent anticipated regular utilisation in the coming years,

The top barriers hindering adoption included security concerns, executives’ resistance and a lack of comprehensive understanding.

The research suggests more businesses have adopted AI solutions than the workforces were aware of, with double the number of leaders (52 per cent) acknowledging their organisation’s use of AI compared with employees (25 per cent).

Overall, 91 per cent of workers say generative AI is either helpful or “miraculous”.

Knowledge workers are most likely to agree they can’t live without digital documents (72 per cent), technology to support collaboration (65 per cent) and video conferencing (58 per cent).

The report says: “As hybrid work becomes more prevalent, leaders tend to rely more on collaboration and video conferencing, while employees tend to lean towards instant messaging platforms and digital approval tools for their communication and workflow needs.

“Despite the increasing adoption of digital technologies, paper-based work continues to be used in many workplaces.

“More than one in three knowledge workers say that at least half of their work is paper based, while 19 per cent say they are fully paperless.”