June 2024 EN:Insights Forum: Investigating AI in the Workplace

SHRM Executive Network members got a deep dive into the latest data on AI in the workplace from SHRM Research at the June EN:Insights Forum.

“Over the last six months, SHRM has been conducting various studies on AI in the workplace,” said Ragan Decker, Ph.D., SHRM’s manager of Executive Network and Enterprise Solutions research. “The world of work is undergoing a shift: AI is changing how we operate, and its impact is undeniable. The widespread adoption of AI has changed the business environment in many ways.”

Here are five key insights from Decker’s presentation.

Research Insight 1: The widespread adoption of AI has changed the business environment in many ways. A 2024 SHRM survey of HR leaders found that because of AI:

• 41% are increasingly concerned about cyberattacks.
• 30% feel greater pressure to innovate.
• 28% see an increased need for upskilling and reskilling workers.

“The concern about cyberattacks has increased because with AI comes more vulnerabilities,” Decker said. “We also found that the pressure to be innovative has intensified because businesses that don’t embrace AI risk falling behind the competition.

“We found in our research that HR leaders in the finance, banking, and insurance industries are more likely to say the regulatory environment has become more complicated as a result of AI as compared to HR leaders in health care and manufacturing,” she added.

Research Insight 2: Many HR leaders possess either limited or no theoretical understanding of AI, or only an intermediate grasp of the fundamentals. In SHRM’s survey, HR leaders sorted themselves into the following categories:

• Beginner (limited or no theoretical understanding of AI): 43%
• Intermediate (theoretical understanding of the fundamentals of AI): 54%
• Advanced (deep theoretical understanding of AI): 2%
• Expert (highly specialized understanding of AI): 1%

Research Insight 3: The areas where organizations are investing the most in AI technologies are also the ones where HR leaders see the greatest opportunities for the application of AI. HR leaders identified these functional areas as both the top AI investment priorities for their organizations and the greatest sources of opportunities for AI application:

• Information technology

o   Top 5 investment area: 44%

o   Top 5 opportunity area: 44%

• Data science/analytics

o   Top 5 investment area: 36%

o   Top 5 opportunity area: 41%

• Marketing

o   Top 5 investment area: 33%

o   Top 5 opportunity area: 40%

• Human resources

o   Top 5 investment area: 32%

o   Top 5 opportunity area: 40%

• Operations

o   Top 5 investment area: 28%

o   Top 5 opportunity area: 28%

Research Insight 4: Most HR departments using AI tools are in the early phase of their adoption. AI is being used the most for recruitment, interviewing, and hiring.

• Nearly 2 in 3 organizations (62%) that are using AI to support HR-related activities only began doing so within the past year.
• 47% of HR professionals say using AI to support HR-related activities has become a priority for their organization in the past 12 months.

o   37% said using AI has become somewhat of a priority in the past 12 months.

o   10% said using AI has become much more of a priority in the past 12 months.

“We found that 1 in 4 organizations use AI to support HR-related activities. But we also found that for many in HR, AI is still in its infancy,” Decker said. “Among organizations who use AI for HR, nearly 2 in 3 only began using AI to support HR-related activities within the past year. And 47% of HR professionals say using AI to support HR-related activities has become somewhat or much more of a priority for their organization in the past 12 months.”

Research Insight 5: Many HR leaders and U.S. workers agree that the ability to collaborate with AI will be a valuable skill in the foreseeable future.

• Will the ability to collaborate with AI be a valuable skill in the foreseeable future?

o   HR leaders: 80%

o   U.S. workers: 83%

• Is the success of AI dependent on the proficiency of the AI user?

o   HR leaders: 82%

o   U.S. workers: 79%

“Many HR leaders, as well as U.S. workers, agree AI should be used as a complement to unique human capabilities, that a human is needed for optimal functionality, and that the ability to collaborate with AI will be a valuable skill in the foreseeable future,” Decker said. “But even though the human component is so important to AI, we found that only 17% of HR leaders say HR is leading the way for the use of AI in the workplace.”

Arturo Ferreira: The Biggest AI Mistake Is Not Engaging

After 12 years of building and growing his media company, Arturo Ferreira had a front-row seat to what generative AI (GenAI) could do. A technological hobbyist throughout his life, Ferreira watched the conversation around GenAI morph from novelty to societal shift. In late 2022, he realized his media company had, at most, a five-year shelf life, and he turned his attention to understanding and mastering the budding field of GenAI. Alongside Martin Crowley, Ferreira co-founded AI Tool Report to help educate others on this important topic.

Here are excerpts from Ferreira’s Q&A during the June 2024 EN:Insights Forum.

How has the conversation around AI in the workplace evolved in 2024?

It’s exciting to see that in such a short time how much more generative AI is being discussed and engaged with and seen as really a new paradigm in how we engage with our work and our lives. Where Google is a search engine, generative AI and its large language models are an answer engine. It’s a much more engaging way of getting the answers you’re looking for.

The skills that you need to work with generative AI are skills that most people already have. It’s curiosity, it’s dedication, and it’s the ability to just say, “OK, this is something different. Let me try it.” Looking at the trajectory of generative AI helped me realize I need to start toying with this, understanding it, how to engage with it, and how to use it to augment my everyday business model.

Organizational leaders feel that they don’t have time or can’t find the time to train themselves, but all it takes is some curiosity and the gumption to say, “All right, let me take 30 minutes today and try to just mess around with it.” Those are the skills that I think are going to start carrying us into this new era in the next year or two.

Will AI lead to job creation, and if so, what kinds of jobs will these be?

The nature of humanity is that we come up with new things that make our life easier and old jobs are replaced by new jobs. Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia, the producer of graphics cards that right now are powering AI, said, “AI will not take your job. Someone who knows AI will.” I think that really sells home the point where AI itself is not smart, it’s just fast. It can do calculations and do things that we are not capable of at a speed that we’re not capable of, but it’s not good creatively. If you leave it alone, it’ll probably just lie to you.

I can see AI creating jobs where it’s essentially like a digital cowboy or cowgirl where you need to ride this thing in the direction you want and it’ll help you. It’ll make things faster, it’ll make them easier, but you still need to manage the tool. Right now, if you’re even remotely curious about generative AI, you’re still early enough to make a difference in your trajectory, your organization’s trajectory, your team’s trajectory. It’s just a matter of trying it and using it and starting to understand it a little bit.

What are the common traits of organizations that integrate AI effectively?

They’re organizations that are willing to take a little bit of a risk. AI helps people punch well above their weight. So, it’s the companies that can innovate and integrate slowly and start finding out those core problems that can be addressed with AI augmentation. It doesn’t mean you build this entirely new chatbot that runs your business. It just means you find the choke point that you’ve always had, whether that’s shipping and receiving, whether that’s reviewing resumes, whether it’s in learning and development.

Find those choke points and see what AI can do to make it a little easier, because the companies that wait too long are going to get behind the curve very quickly. You see it already now with companies such as Midjourney, which is one of the biggest image generators. They are punching way above their weight. It’s a small team and they’re competing with Adobe. AI gives the tools to smaller teams and individuals to compete at a much higher level. Larger companies and organizations that have a set pattern, they need to be willing to take a little bit of a risk and say, “Let’s give this a shot,” because when that train passes you, there’ll be no catching it.

What are the biggest or most common mistakes that you see organizations making regarding AI?

The first and most important mistake is simple: not using it, pretending it’s going to go away, sticking your head in the sand. Over the past 18 months at different conferences and organizations, the most common thread I’ve heard is that the people at the front line are saying, “Hey, I can use this to write email templates, or I can use this to kind of sort out my schedule or take notes on my meetings.” But the people at the top of their organizations have rightful concerns about security and liability, and it’s a case of never the twain shall meet. The people at the top say, “You can’t use AI,” and then the people lower down in the organization use it anyway. That creates this disconnect that requires this compromise because two things are true: One, it’s going to happen; and two, if you don’t use it, your competition will.  

I would say the biggest mistake is simply not engaging with it. The second biggest would probably be engaging with it without rhyme or reason or trying to do too much. People overestimate what AI can do in the next year—and grossly underestimate what it will do in the next five. AI won’t solve all your problems, but it’ll make you a little bit better, a little bit faster right now. So as long as you keep your expectations reasonable, AI can be a game changer in your everyday work, but don’t expect it to solve all your problems. In fact, you don’t want that, right? Because if AI can handle everything, then why are you here?