Despite recognised benefits across the board, employees remain more hesitant over AI adoption than business leaders.

This is according to a new research report from Zoom, showing that, while AI can reduce busy work, improve efficiency, and provide more time to workers, employees are far less enthused by the emerging tech’s widespread adoption than their employers.

The global survey of over 10,000 full time workers, including employees and team leaders, found that even as enthusiasm levels varied across regions, employees were consistently more hesitant over AI adoption than business leaders.

AI Begets Big Benefits 

The discrepancy could be due to the varying level of benefits AI offers to leaders vs employees, as team leads say that AI could help them accomplish busy tasks like drafting messages and taking meeting notes.

92% of leaders, according to the survey, found fewer repetitive tasks as a benefit of AI, along with completing work faster.

Similarly, 89% of employees found fewer repetitive tasks and more time as the top benefits of AI.

Employees listed automating repetitive tasks (53%), finding and organising information (44%), and summarising meetings, chat messages, and notes (43%) as being the top reasons they would use AI.

For leaders, AI uses tended to revolve around meetings, listing real-time help during meetings (41%), summarizing meetings and notetaking (35%), and better audio and video quality during meetings (33%) to be the top reasons they would use AI.

AI Avoiders

Despite these noted benefits, AI is still being avoided by employers and employees, which is costing businesses time.

Those who still haven’t taken up AI tools recognise that they would if it could save them time. The data shows, it does.

74% of employers say that AI saves them at least an hour a day, with 46% of employees saying the same.

Both employees and leaders agree that this extra time could help them develop better workflow processes, help them learn new topics and upskill, and allow them uninterrupted focus.

Yet, employees remain hesitant.

The Employee-Leader Gap

88% of leaders say they were favourable or very favourable toward AI, compared to 63% of employees.

Further, while over four in five (82%) of leaders say they were excited about AI, only 57% of employees shared this excitement.

While the majority of employees are favourable and excited about AI, the discrepancy between them and their employers is notable.

Familiarity may play a part: while 90% of leaders say they were familiar with AI, and 73% say they use it at work, only 65% of employees claim to be familiar with the technology, with just shy of a third (32%) using AI at least a few times a week.

Nearly of quarter of employees (23%), however, say that they never use AI for work or personal use, compared to 4% of team leaders.

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Still employees seem to be clear about the drawbacks of AI.

Employees are concerned about the potential human job loss resulting in AI adoption, a company’s data being less secure, and trusting AI’s accuracy – all valid concerns for the adoption of any new technology.

Leaders appear to see different drawbacks, with with the majority saying that AI requires too much training, is too impersonal, and that employees risk becoming dependent on the tech.

Bridging the Gap

Of the employees who say they do not use AI at work, over half said it is because their company does not utilise AI tools as a whole.

Of those that do use AI, only 63% say their company does provide AI tools, meaning over a third (37%) must seek out these tools on their own.

Further, leaders appear to not believe in their own teams capabilities, with 69% saying that their team wouldn’t know how to use AI if it was introduced, and 67% agreeing that their team just isn’t tech savvy.

Training and education therefore would be vital in introducing AI to companies in a way that benefits both leaders and employees.