AI yet to boom with Boomers but young workers trust it
It’s not just about the office playlist: AI technology could deepen Australia’s generation gap in the workplace.
A study published Thursday by analytics firm Amplitude found that older workers are significantly less likely to trust decisions made by AI tools than their younger counterparts, creating tension between groups.
However, the study warns that this trend could also have a serious impact on business productivity, with senior managers failing to provide guidance on its use.
The findings come weeks after the federal government signed a deal with US firm Anthropic and established the AI Security Institute to share details about the adoption of AI in Australia.
Amplitude surveyed more than 1,000 Australian office workers for its annual study to assess their knowledge and use of AI tools, as well as their trust in them.
Researchers found that more than one in four workers (27 percent) use AI technology every day, a third (33 percent) use it several times a week, and only 15 percent avoid AI in the workplace.
Younger workers are almost twice as likely to use AI to complete tasks; While 39 percent of people ages 18 to 24 use technology, 20 percent of workers ages 55 to 64 use it.
According to the study, members of Generation Z were much more likely to trust AI decisions over their own; This rate was 31 percent, while it was only four percent in the previous generation.
Mark Drasutis, Amplitude’s head of value for Asia Pacific, said the AI gap could cause tension between groups and poor business strategies.
“There’s a generation that grew up with the internet… but there’s also a generation of leaders and a generation in organizations that aren’t doing that,” he told AAP.
“This leads to a lack of strategic guidance from the upper echelons of a business.”
Mr Drasutis said senior managers had a responsibility to create AI policies and provide training for the entire workforce or they could risk limiting a business’s potential and exacerbating skills shortages.
“Everyone has the right to be skeptical, but not so much that you turn it off because you will be putting your employees and your business at a disadvantage,” he said.
“You’ll end up with a fragmented workplace where the team dynamic doesn’t quite work.”
The research found that many employees avoid using AI technology for judgment-heavy tasks such as strategic planning (28 percent) and data analysis (25 percent), while the most popular uses are email and report writing (44 percent) and summarizing information (38 percent).
In December, the government published Australia’s National AI Plan, which called for greater investment in domestic AI infrastructure and committed $29.9 million to the AI Security Institute.
