Microsoft Releases 2024 Work Trend Index Covering AI What is Microsoft’s work trend index?
Microsoft, in collaboration with LinkedIn, has released their latest Work Trend Index. It’s the first report of 2024 aimed at the use of AI in the workplace and how it’ll impact businesses going forward. Here’s a look at some of the most comprehensive research conducted for AI in the workplace.
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index
Microsoft WorkLab is responsible for the Work Trend Index, which in the past has researched hybrid work, working from home, and other developments important to online business. Their releases, averaging roughly three reports per year, started in 2020 and track the ongoing digitization of the workplace.
Of course, business went online long before 2020. Web 2.0 saw the rise of many e-commerce retailers and digital service providers, starting in the early 2000s and gaining more prominence throughout the 2010s. That included industry giants like Amazon and Netflix but also individual websites from sectors like iGaming. Domains like https://bingo.paddypower.com/ rely on the internet to market, display, and deliver their services, which in this case are hundreds of slot and bingo games. Now that Web 2.0 has legitimized a lot of online businesses, hyperscalers like Microsoft are concerned with what comes next.
That brings us to the 2024 Work Trend Index report. It’s solely focused on AI, long theorized to be a building block for Web 3.0, the next era of the internet. Web 3.0, more commonly called Web3, is more fully explained at https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-web3. Put simply, it’s a next-stage internet that makes use of AI, machine learning, and most importantly, blockchain technology.
“Now Comes the Hard Part”
This newest Work Trend Index report is called “AI at Work is here. Now Comes the Hard Part.” It’s a response to increasing uptake in generative AI tools, which will require most business industries to adapt to fit them. That’s the aforementioned hard part, the necessary changes that will need to become made if these businesses want to harness AI effectively, with little disruption as possible.
Between their industry position and collaboration with LinkedIn, Microsoft was able to survey 31,000 people in 31 countries across the world. Alongside LinkedIn hiring trends, Microsoft’s 365 suite also allowed them to track productivity signals for participating parties.
As for the report’s findings, Microsoft claims that the use of generative AI in the workplace has doubled within the first five months of 2024. They boil their findings down into three key insights.
Employees Want AI
The first is that employees want AI, with the added wrinkle that they won’t wait for companies to catch up. Of course, this mainly applies to knowledge workers where the report found 75% of those surveyed used AI today. Almost half of them had started using it within the last six months.
Many (90%) said it saves time and makes work more focused (85%), though Microsoft points out that many of the benefits stated by employees are hard to quantify. Shockingly, 78% of surveyed employees said that they brought their own tools to the workplace.
AI Raises the Bar
The second insight is that “for employees, AI raises the bar and breaks the career ceiling.” Through improving AI skills, employees and newcomers can fill a lucrative talent shortage while AI is still being adopted. Over half (55%) of surveyed leaders became concerned about a lack of expertise for future AI-powered roles.
Alongside their own figures, Microsoft’s WorkLab highlights LinkedIn stats showing a 160% increase in nontechnical employees using its LinkedIn Learning courses on AI. This comes with a 142x boost to members adding ChatGPT to their profile, and Microsoft’s own AI tool Copilot.
The AI Power User
The report’s final insight concerns “the rise of the AI power user.” It identifies that employees using AI saved approximately 30 minutes per day. Of them, 61% felt spurred by CEOs and other workplace authorities to use generative AI at work. However, only 35% reported receiving AI training in the workplace.
Ultimately, the report seems to show the typical benefits that come with early adoption of an emerging technology. For more, you can read the full report here – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/ai-at-work-is-here-now-comes-the-hard-part/.
