A new global survey of over 3000 business and IT leaders released today by Avanade, the Microsoft solutions provider, reveals the workplace impact of AI for organisations and how to safeguard roles as AI is scaled.

The survey found that most employees anticipate positive impacts and outcomes from AI, with 79% believing generative AI tools will cut down about 20 hours, or half, of their work week.

However, 63% of business and IT executives think that said employees will need some new skills, or a completely new skill set altogether, to cope with the introduction of AI models and systems into their day-to-day.

So, the workforce skillset will need to change, but what about the workforce itself?

From the early days of automation to the recent advancements of generative AI, humans are potentially more worried than ever that a robot will take their job.

This is contrary, however, to how nearly two-thirds (64%) of IT and business leaders feel, as they believe that AI will maintain or increase the number of human roles at their organisation in the next year, with most expecting headcounts to increase by up to 9%.

Digging a bit deeper, confidence levels regarding how organisations and their leaders are prioritising actions to ready their people, processes, and platforms for AI, vary significantly by industry, country, role levels, and job titles.

And these discrepancies track with recent research into how AI will – and already has – affected workers and the workplace.

Further, the global survey shows just how varied government responses to the prospect of AI regulation has been, ranging from the EU’s landmark AI Act, to the UK’s current non-statutory position on the burgeoning technology.

In the workplace, C-suite and business leaders are right to be excited about AI’s productivity promises, but managers should be wary about their decision-making potential.

Workers unions in the UK have already called for laws regulating the use of AI and automation in workplaces in an attempt to safeguard their rights and have a human-in-the-loop for major workplace decisions such as hiring and firing.

Still, Avanade’s survey found that most (95%) of employees are optimistic about AI and its impact. Even this overwhelmingly positive response is littered with doubts suggesting organisations may be overlooking how to protect their people when adopting AI responsibly and effectively.

According to the survey, less than half (48%) of organisations have put in place a complete set of specific guidelines/policies for responsible AI, which is lower than the 52% of business and IT leaders who answered this question in March 2023.

The slight change may reflect how fast-paced AI’s development and proliferation has been, and how government and organisational regulation has struggled to keep up with the advancing technology.

As well, while almost all employees (96%) are confident their organisations and IT teams have the knowledge and resources to scale AI, but only 52% say their organisation has complete human capital and workforce planning processes in place to safeguard headcount as generative AI is scaled.

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More concerning, is that about half (49%) of employees admit they do not have the utmost confidence that their organisation’s risk management processes are adequate for an enterprise-wide technical integration of generative AI.

This confidence level dipped to 45% in the UK, and was lowest amongst government, life sciences, utilities, and non-profit sectors.

While AI is already here, and confidence is high it will have an impact on the future of work, how this is carried out is still causing concerns for employers and workers alike.