November 7, 2023
The Workplace Cocktail Hour. Chris Moriarty on AI, toxic workplaces and more
In the first of a new series of news-based podcasts, I catch up with Chris Moriarty, the co-founder of Audiem and much besides. Over a glass of gin and tonic, we discuss the AI Safety Summit and the proclamations of imminent doom that came before and after it. We also talk about the covid inquiry and the toxic workplace culture it exposed as an intriguing subplot. (more…)
November 2, 2023
Third of firms have adopted AI to replace or augment employees’ roles this year
According to Owl Labs’ annual State of Hybrid Work Report, 32 percent of employees believe that AI will help them do their jobs more efficiently, while a further 22 percent think AI will create new jobs allowing their teams to grow. However, uncertainty around AI regulation and safety is causing ‘AI anxiety’ to grow, with nearly 1 in 5 UK workers (17 percent) concerned that AI will steal their jobs. A further 19 percent are worried that AI has the potential to create new ethical issues in the workplace. (more…)
October 30, 2023
Firms are throwing resources at AI knowing they are likely to fail
Despite a recent track record of failure when implementing digital strategies, more than three quarters of UK businesses are gearing up to invest in artificial intelligence over the next 12 months without really knowing what they are doing. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) admit to being ill-prepared for the integration of the technology into their operations, according to new survey. The report [registration] from tech consultancy Infinum suggests that over two-thirds of UK businesses that invested in digital products over the past five years have faced failure and are about to invest in AI knowing of their own poor track record. (more…)
October 19, 2023
Real estate tech strategies advance AI, workplace and sustainability
Commercial real estate occupiers are willing to put their money where the tech is, according to new polling from JLL’s 2023 Global Real Estate Technology Survey. Ninety-one percent of occupier respondents are willing to pay a premium for tech-enabled space as they look to technology for strategic value and increased revenue. In fact, real estate tech budgets are set to grow faster than investments in?headcount, footprint and operating budgets, the report suggests. (more…)
October 10, 2023
Employers struggling to keep pace with AI adoption
While the use of AI tools in the workplace is rapidly increasing, many organisations are lagging in providing guidance and training in the use of these technologies, according to new survey commissioned by Ricoh Europe. This governance gap comes amidst growing interest within companies to implement automation solutions. The poll of 6,000 workers across Europe, conducted by Opinium, suggests there is a gap between workers’ use of emerging technologies and organisations’ efforts to support and manage that usage. (more…)
October 9, 2023
SMEs turn to AI and acquisitions to navigate an uncertain future
More than half of all business leaders (55 percent) believe that the overall economic conditions in the UK and Ireland have worsened compared to a year ago. Yet, 58 percent of SMEs anticipate an increase in their firm’s sales revenues over the next 12 months; while nearly half (47 percent) expect profitability to improve within a year and 47 percent of SMEs are confident that their firm’s total number of employees will grow in the next 12 months. Business leaders are planning to invest more in AI and acquisitions to help them navigate an uncertain future. (more…)
October 4, 2023
Generative AI will outperform humans on traditional recruitment processes
A new report from Arctic Shores, a psychometric assessment provider, claims that the use of Generative AI is already common among students, younger workers and job applicants, with around seven in ten of 2,000 respondents to a survey expecting to use ChatGPT while completing a job application or assessment over the next 12 months, and 17 percent already using it. With 72 percent of students and candidates using some form of Generative AI on a regular basis – a number that has increased by 50 percent in just four months – the implications for employers and talent acquisition leaders are profound, the report argues. (more…)
October 21, 2020
Future of work has arrived sooner than expected, WEF report claims
The Future of Jobs 2020 report from the World Economic Forum claims that COVID-19 has caused the labour market to change faster than expected. The research suggests that what was recently considered the future of work has now arrived. By 2025, automation and a new division of labour between humans and machines will disrupt 85 million jobs globally in medium and large businesses across 15 industries and 26 economies. (more…)
August 11, 2020
UK faces urgent AI skills gap, Microsoft report claims
The UK is facing an AI skills gap that could leave companies struggling to compete with rivals from across the world, a new Microsoft report claims. The research, entitled AI Skills in the UK, also found that businesses in this country use less AI than firms overseas, and when they do it tends to be less advanced. UK organisations are also less likely to be classed as “AI pros” compared to the global average (15 percent versus 23 percent), and the UK has a higher failure rate of AI than the global average (measured by the number of projects generating no commercial value – 29 percent versus 19 percent). (more…)
May 18, 2020
Majority of UK businesses now automating key processes
The UK is making great strides in adopting process automation technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) and process mining, according to new research from digital intelligence company ABBYY. The research report, The State of Process Mining and RPA (registration), claims that 64 percent of UK businesses are already using process mining technologies, with almost 3 in 10 (28 percent) currently using RPA and a further 34 percent intending to start in the next year. This comes as no surprise, since a vast majority believe that process mining (91 percent) and RPA (87 percent) are, or would be, useful to their business. (more…)
December 11, 2019
Tech trends to watch that will disrupt 2020 and beyond
The next decade promises to offer both incredible opportunity and challenge for all of us. Technologies like artificial intelligence will no longer be considered new but will instead be at the heart of some huge disruptive changes that will run right through our society. In particular, AI will start to enable the automation of many things that were previously deemed too complex or even too “human”. We’ll see these changes and tech trends at work – traditional professions like accountancy, lawyers and others will over time, see significant portions of what they do be taken over by virtual robots. Vocations such as lorry drivers, taxi drivers and even chefs may disappear as machines are introduced to perform the same function but with more consistent results and less risk. (more…)
May 3, 2022
Get ready for the artificial intelligence revolution
by Reece Akhtar • AI, Comment, Workplace