After 18 months of non-stop hype and rapid-fire launches of new, easily accessible consumer-facing tools, it may seem like everyone is experimenting with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). In fact, according to the new Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals Report, almost two-thirds (63%) of professionals working in the legal, tax, and risk & compliance sectors say they’ve personally tried using AI-powered technologies as a starting point for a task at work.
While that’s an encouraging finding for those of us who’ve been pushing innovation in professional services and constantly looking for ways for increasingly time-pressed workers to do more with less, it also raises some important questions for corporate leaders. Notably, are these people using GenAI within prescribed company guidelines, and what about the remaining 37% of professionals who have been reluctant to try AI? What’s holding them back?
Need for Corporate Guidance on AI
The answers to both expose some weaknesses in how corporations have been rolling out AI-powered solutions to their employees. While some businesses have been incredibly prescriptive, outlining exactly how, when and where their people should be using AI, and even giving them tailor-made tools to use, others have taken a much more laissez-faire approach. Accordingly, when we asked the people who have never used AI in their jobs why they were still on the sidelines, 37% said they were concerned about data security, 35% said they were unsure what types of work the technologies could be used for, and 28% said they were unsure how to access AI tools.
Meanwhile, when we asked the folks who have already been using AI what they are using it for, the most common responses were drafting articles based on materials, summarizing documents and conducting basic research on technical topics, such as research for specific court cases and tax technical references.
Both ends of this spectrum highlight some important lessons for business leaders. First and foremost, the majority of employees are already using GenAI to draft text and conduct research at work. If companies do not have guidelines in place for how best to use that technology and what safeguards need to be in place to govern that usage, they are exposing themselves to the risk that the technology could be misused. By now, we’ve all seen countless cautionary tales about professional users who have over-relied on consumer-facing AI tools to do professional-grade tasks, like writing legal briefs or conducting a tax audit. The early adopters out there who are already using these technologies should be encouraged, but they must also be guided to the right solutions and proper use cases.
Perhaps the more troubling finding in our data, though, is that a large number of professionals working in legal, tax, and risk & compliance sectors – all areas where the topic of GenAI has been dominating the news cycle for more than a year – have still not even dabbled with the technology, in many cases because they don’t know how to access it or what to use it for. This is a big disconnect between leadership and employees. According to our survey, 94% of C-suite executives said they see AI significantly impacting their strategies. That’s going to be hard to achieve if many of the employees who will drive that transformation don’t even know where to find the technology.
An Opportunity to Define Responsible AI Adoption
The fact is, although the growth of GenAI in business has been downright stratospheric when compared to other technologies, we are still in the early adopter phase. Much of the development of new solutions is happening faster than companies can keep up with – let alone implement policies on how to effectively use. But this step will be critical to getting AI into its next phase of more mainstream, everyday business use.
Importantly, it is also clear that the end users – the employees whose day-to-day workflows will change in response to AI – are looking to their employers and industry bodies for that guidance. A 57% majority of professionals believe certification processes for AI systems should be introduced, while 55% say professional/industry bodies should develop and mandate their own standards and 45% say companies should develop and publish their own AI guidelines.
While there is tremendous excitement in the marketplace right now about the potential of AI to improve productivity and streamline operations, corporations hoping to fully benefit from this evolution first need to focus on getting their employees up to speed and guiding them through the process of adoption.
