Slingshot’s 2024 Digital Work Trends Report Reveals That Employees Haven’t Yet Unlocked The Full Potential of AI in the Workplace
CRANBURY, NJ (August 22, 2024) – Slingshot, the work management platform from software company Infragistics that brings data to the center of everything teams work on, has released Part 1 of its two-part 2024 Digital Work Trends Report. The second annual report reveals a disconnect between the managerial expectations of AI in the workplace and how employees are using AI in their day-to-day work. While employers have implemented AI to support employees’ initial research for tasks and projects (62%) and help employees manage their workflow (58%) and analyze data (55%), nearly two-thirds of employees (63%) are instead primarily leveraging AI to double check their work.
“The workplace continues to undergo a rapid transformation as we now see more employers implementing AI tools into their businesses to drive efficiencies and increase productivity. While employers have specific intentions for AI in the workplace, it’s clear that they’re not aligned with employees’ current use of AI. Much of this comes down to employees’ education and training around AI tools,” said Dean Guida, Founder of Slingshot.
The new report, based on research conducted by market research firm Dynata, on behalf of Slingshot, reveals that only 23% of employees feel completely educated and trained on AI. And while 72% of employers 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.
Additional findings of the report include:
- 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. 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.
- 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. For many companies, this means their data is siloed across departments, platforms and channels, instead of one centralized location, and teams don’t have access to it. And without centralized data, AI cannot run. Data is top of mind for employees too: 32% of employees say their company would be ready to support AI if it offered more training around data and AI.
“AI has the potential to change the way teams work by allowing them to trade in highly repetitive, mundane tasks for more high-level, strategic projects. But, the only way to unlock AI’s full potential in the workplace is to properly prepare employees and companies’ overall operations. Employers and employees are certainly on their way, but there’s still a lot more to be done, starting with centralizing data, increasing education around AI and reskilling and upskilling employees through continued training,” continued Guida.
Slingshot’s 2024 Digital Work Trends Report is based on responses from 253 adult respondents across four age groups and all 50 states. Part 1 of the report can be viewed here.
About Slingshot
Slingshot is the digital workplace that connects everyone you work with to everything they need to get work done. The platform streamlines companies’ workplace tech stacks by giving remote, in-person and hybrid teams a single place to collaborate, make data-driven decisions, set goals, share content and communicate within the context of the projects they’re working on. Slingshot puts an end to the interrupted workflows that result from constant app-switching and places data analytics central to decision-making, helping organizations create data-driven cultures. With clarity on priorities, workload and expectations, teams are empowered to manage their work, no matter where they are. Slingshot is available as a desktop app (Mac and Windows) and mobile app (Apple App Store and Google Play), and can be accessed on any web browser at slingshotapp.io. The platform was built by software company Infragistics.
