A joint report shows that many organisations are facing significant challenges as they work to implement generative and agentic AI.

Writer, a provider of AI agents for enterprise, has partnered with research firm Workplace Intelligence to release a second annual AI survey, ‘AI Adoption in the Enterprise’. 

To gather the data, Writer and Workplace Intelligence collected information from 2,400 employees and C-suite leaders from the US, UK, Ireland, ‘Benelux’ countries, France and Germany. What was discovered is that organisations are still facing significant obstacles when it comes to implementing agentic and generative AI. 

The report found that almost 80pc of contributing executives are struggling with problems related to lagging ROI, strategy gaps and internal power struggles, with 38pc of CEOs reporting a high or crippling amount of stress around their AI strategy. In fact, 64pc of CEOs worry that they could lose their jobs if they fail to navigate their organisation through the AI transition. 

As a result, 92pc of C-suite participants said that they are actively cultivating  a “new class of ‘AI-elite’ employees” as a means of getting ahead in the AI race. Nearly 90pc of contributing leaders are of the opinion that “AI super-users” are at least five times more productive than employees who have yet to embrace AI. 

The stakes are high “for those who lag behind”, claims the report, which said “77pc of executives warn that employees who refuse to become AI-proficient won’t be considered for promotions or leadership roles and 60pc plan to lay off employees who can’t or won’t use AI.”

“This is a defining moment in AI adoption and the gap between super-users and laggards is widening fast,” said Dan Schawbel, a managing partner at Workplace Intelligence. 

“We’re already seeing this play out; the super-users we surveyed were around three times more likely to have received both a promotion and pay raise in the past year, compared to employees who have been slow to adopt these tools.

“Top AI users are also saving nearly nine hours per week using AI, 4.5 times more than the two hours a week reported by AI laggards.”

But for May Habib, the CEO and co-founder of Writer, layoffs are “not a viable AI strategy”.

Habib said that “leaders who are putting in the work to radically redesign operations with human-agent collaboration at the centre are the ones compounding their advantage in ways competitors can’t replicate”, adding that “AI transformation is ultimately about people and the future belongs to the companies putting agent-building power directly into the hands of people closest to the work”. 

C-suite challenges

A gap in strategy was among the challenges being navigated in the workplace by C-suite personnel. 39pc admitted that they don’t have a formal strategy in place to drive revenue from AI tools and even in scenarios where strategies do exist, it was found that quality is lacking. Three-quarters of participant leaders noted that their company’s AI strategy is “more for show” than for actual internal guidance.

Security and governance were also found to be of concern to executives, 67pc of whom said that they believe their company has suffered a data leak or security breach because an employee used an unapproved AI tool. More than a third concede they aren’t very confident they could “pull the plug” on a rogue AI agent if it started causing financial or reputational damage to their company.

There may also be an element of employee sabotage at work, as the data suggested that rather than embracing AI, 29pc of employees – including 44pc of Gen Z participants – admitted to as much by entering company information into public tools, using unapproved tools or refusing to use AI altogether.

Three-quarters of participating executives said that employee sabotage poses a serious threat to their company’s future. For others, lagging ROI and confusion around the benefits of the tech are impacting adoption.

Nearly all of the contributing executives (97pc) said that AI has been beneficial, with three-quarters of the opinion that AI agents will be a part of their organisation’s C-suite within the next five years.

However, nearly half said that AI adoption at their organisation has been a “massive disappointment”. 

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