A report released Wednesday by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicates that many organizations are having difficulty converting efficiency gains that are AI-driven into any sort of measurable value.
The fourth edition of the consultancy’s annual Global AI at Work Survey reveals 42% of frontline employees who use AI on a regular basis save upwards of a full day each week; however, 66% are not given guidance on what to do with time they save, and “more than half don’t redirect it to strategic work.”
The report, AI at Work: Strategy Matters More Than Tools, is based on a global survey of 11,749 employees in 14 markets, from industries ranging from financial services to the healthcare sector.
David Martin, global leader of people and organization work at BCG, and the report’s lead author, said via email that the number of employees lacking the required guidance is surprising, “but it also tracks with what we see in many AI transformations. Companies have moved quickly to give people tools, but many have not yet redesigned the work around those tools.”
Saved time, he added, does not automatically become value. If a frontline employee saves a few hours a week, but has no direction on whether to use that time for customer service, quality improvement, innovation, or faster execution, “that value can simply leak out of the organization”
