AI is changing jobs faster than companies can keep up with them, finds the report
A BCG report found that many organizations are struggling to turn AI into a resource that shows true value across the company.
A new study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), found that in some organizations, artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the nature of work, leadership and the way employees feel at work. However, whether the change is good or bad is debatable.
To gather data for BCG’s fourth annual AI at Work report, the organization gathered information from 11,749 employees scattered around the world in 14 markets across a wide range of industries. The findings are that 72pc of respondents believe that AI has already significantly changed the expectations of skills in their role. About half of the report spends more time controlling and directing AI than doing the work itself.
More than two-thirds of people who regularly use AI say it has improved their job satisfaction. However, four out of 10 survey participants found it increased cognitive load, creating a ‘happiness paradox’ where AI makes work both better and harder at the same time.
Despite widespread use, many companies are finding that they are not turning the efficiency gains driven by AI into something of measurable value.
For example, while 42pc of mainstream users report that they save at least a full day of work with AI per week, 66pc also report that they get limited or no guidance on what to do during that time. More than half do not redirect to strategic work, which means that whenever savings leak out of the organization.
“The first wave of AI focused on individual productivity. The next wave will need to transform collective work,” said Vincente Beauchene, managing director and partner at BCG, who is also a co-author of the report.
“Everyone talks about AI replacing work, but it’s actually about rethinking the addition of human value from within. This is the role of leaders. Our survey reveals a real change in management in the age of AI. 65 percent of managers and leaders now believe that agents will take at least half of their work in the next three years and frontline workers see their jobs and direct many changes in my behavior.”
Clarity of strategy
Since last year’s report, double the number of respondents said that AI agents are already integrated into workflows, however, there are clear issues in terms of transparency and effectiveness. 61pc of donors agreed that agents could do at least half of their work within three years, yet more than half (52pc) still have a limited understanding of what agents are and governance is lagging far behind technology.
The report finds that logical clarity emerges from the study as “the most important differentiator in sustaining the impact of AI over time as organizations move beyond deploying AI tools to distributed use cases”. This has resulted in what the report’s authors call the ‘reshape/invent dividend’, “leading to greater value adoption and a better employee experience”.
Sylvain Duranton, co-author and global leader of BCG X said: “The equation of happiness rewrites itself during the year of using AI. At first, the novelty of AI and the fun of using the fuel of understanding, but that ‘AI honeymoon’ fades without clarity of strategy.
“Employees don’t back down from the pressure of AI, they thrive when the strategy is clear, the direction is real and the message gets to them. Business value and employee enjoyment are not trade-offs. The organizations that capture the most business value are the ones where employees enjoy working the most.”
In the middle of May, International Data Corporation (IDC), in collaboration with Dell Technologies, has published a global study that examines how European governments and public sector organizations are approaching AI autonomy and agency and what will be needed to deploy the technology at scale.
The findings are that leaders in the European public sector show a strong drive to accelerate modernization with agent AI, although they also face challenges. critical skills gap required to use advanced technology. This creates a huge gap between aspirations and performance, according to the report.
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