We use AI at work without telling our bosses. Companies are faced with a dilemma

The adoption of AI in the workplace is more than just a trend: it is a quiet revolution, driven by employees themselves, who use it in their accounts or personal devices without the company’s knowledge. At least it’s something to smell.

Because it’s important. As AI makes its way into the daily lives of companies, their leaders face the dilemma of integrating it effectively to avoid being left behind, while at the same time maintaining control to benefit from these productivity gains. If they do not do this, the employee records it.

Paradox. According to a joint report from Microsoft and LinkedIn following a survey of 31,000 professionals, three-quarters of employees performing knowledge-related tasks are turning to generative artificial intelligence on their own, most of them hiding it from their employers.

This has several consequences:

• Lots of benefits, little strategy. Employees’ use of generative AI occurs outside of their companies’ official policies and policies. This also makes it difficult to assess the benefits of AI investments and their viability.
• More requirements than possibilities. 66% of business leaders would not hire someone without AI skills, but only 39% of employees say their company provides AI training.

Moreover, this penetration is unlikely to suffer from a generation gap. The majority of all age groups are using AI tools that were not provided to them by their company. Ten years ago we talked about BYOD (Bring your own device, the phenomenon of using personal devices for work). Today we’ll talk about BYOIA.

These average percentages tend to increase for employees of small and medium-sized companies.

Dynamics of changes. This underground movement represents a change on a double scale:

• On the one hand, employees are using AI to shorten their work hours. On average, they save half an hour a day.
• On the other hand, such widespread adoption represents a new horizon for the transformation of companies, as with the advent of the PC or the Internet.

Vision of the future. Business leaders are faced with the need to implement AI to remain competitive, but to do so in a tangible way for the company. And controlled. Moreover, there has been a reluctance to invest in AI training, which is fading both to improve efficiency and to create an environment of continuous innovation.

The next challenge is to match employees’ willingness to perform better and more efficiently with a controlled environment in which they can measure return on investment and minimize risk. Also with the company’s long-term strategy.

Featured Image | Xataka with Midjourney

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