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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- A Google Workspace study explored how young leaders use AI.
- Respondents emphasized the importance of personalized AI.
- Professional development is a top use case for AI.
AI is transforming the workplace, giving professionals new ways to carry out their tasks. To understand the impact of this change, Google Workspace has published a survey that examines how next-generation leaders are using AI — and the results are more nuanced than you might expect.
Google Workspace’s second annual ‘Young Leaders’ study, conducted by the Harris Poll, surveyed more than 1,000 full-time knowledge workers in the US aged 22 to 39 who hold, or aspire to hold, a leadership position at work. The research revealed trends about how these professionals are using AI at work, and what they want from their tools.
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“Young leaders, they really are the people who show where work is going in terms of what tools people are using, how they work,” said Yulie Kwon Kim, vice president of product at Google Workspace, to ZDNET. “How they are now using AI tells us where a lot of things are going.”
Valuable tools
While AI is typically associated with helping people with their hard skills, the technology is also assisting them with soft skills, such as career development. An overwhelming 92% of survey respondents reported that AI has increased confidence in their professional skills. Young leaders are using the technology as a thought partner to challenge their ideas and provide feedback, and even as a career coach.
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The study found that “72% have used AI to answer a question they were hesitant to ask a colleague or manager, 71% have received advice for important professional conversations, and 69% have used AI to prepare for a career move, interview, or other job transition.”
“A lot of times you might do this with other people on your team, but sometimes people aren’t just there when you need, on the fly or whenever is convenient for you, or sometimes you might be so early-stage that you just want to do a little bit privately, and now everyone has a potential collaborator to work with them on that,” said Kwon Kim.
AI tools have become increasingly valuable for career advice, as they not only have access to a vast amount of information but can also understand nuanced user queries and distill information in an easy-to-understand format. There is also the freedom of not having to worry about being judged by another person.
Fiona Mark, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, said AI can play a valuable role in helping strengthen some leadership skills.
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“These AI coaches aim to offer a safe place to practice certain leadership skills for users, at scale, and make learning more interactive and valuable,” said Mark.
“While AI coaches currently do not have the insights and nuances that a human instructor has, they do, however, offer a form of experiential learning that can improve learning outcomes that are available at scale to many learners.”
Google’s study also found that a majority of respondents (91%) expressed increased confidence in being able to contribute more than their role typically requires, and an overwhelming sense that AI literacy will be a critical skill for the future of work.
AI personalization
While the young leaders seem to value AI tools, the survey showed they are selective in what they want them to offer, with 92% of young leaders seeking AI with personalization capabilities.
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AI-enabled personalization refers to creating content tailored to your user preferences, such as writing style, as well as providing experiences that incorporate your everyday information repositories, including calendars, emails, and more.
The young leaders value this capability so much that 90% reported they would use AI at work more if it were increasingly personalized.
As many as 90% of respondents suggested personalized AI-generated responses would save them time, and 88% said they would improve productivity. Kwon Kim says this is an indication of how much the perception of AI has changed in the past year.
“I think a really big takeaway is that expectations have gone even higher, and that’s why you saw in the poll results that personalization is really important to young leaders,” said Kwon Kim.
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“There are so many different tools that can generate an email reply or just generate something, but in order for AI to be truly useful in someone’s everyday work, it needs to be personalized.”
The respondents are even taking it upon themselves to personalize the AI tools, with 77% of respondents describing themselves as “active designers” of their AI workflows, and 85% confident in their ability to personalize their AI systems, according to the report.
The bigger picture
The study’s results come at a time when distrust in AI technologies continues to grow. A recent Pew Research Study found that a median of 34% of adults say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI. In countries such as the United States, Italy, Australia, Brazil, and Greece, about half of adults reported being more concerned than excited, according to the researchers.
Beyond mistrust, working professionals have also been deterred from using AI tools at work due to shame or the risk of producing subpar AI results. Recent research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab found that 40% of its survey’s respondents reported receiving work slop in the past month, and half view workers who turn in work slop as less creative, reliable, and capable.
“Employees, rightly, have a distrust of AI implementation in their workflows — after all, this is a technology that leaders are claiming will reduce workforces and be highly efficient and productive, threatening the long-term job prospects of many white collar workers,” added Mark.
As a result, the confidence in AI tools and usage among young leaders may seem high. However, Kwon Kim said it’s because this demographic is the most likely to fall under the early adopter category, driven by a desire to succeed.
“I think these, in many ways, represent people who are really going to be more the early adopters on wanting to get ahead, to learn, to find the best tools possible, to help themselves,” said Kwon Kim. “In some ways, that’s the reason why it’s interesting to me, is that they tend to show where things are going.”