People think AI will help automate mundane tasks but worry about unintended consequences

A  new poll from Ricoh Europe claims that people in both the UK and Ireland say they are are keen to use AI to automate workflows to improve productivity and job fulfilment, but the implementation of these systems is being hampered by their concerns about disrupting what are described as mission-critical operations.

The research was conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of Ricoh Europe, polling 2,000 employees and 300 executives across the UK and Ireland. It claims to find significant employee appetite for process automation in the workplace, with almost a third (30 percent) reporting they do not currently have access to process automation technologies, despite wanting them.

Business leaders echo and acknowledge their employees’ enthusiasm for the use of AI to drive this automation, citing the slow adoption of process automation solutions as a key technical frustration to their employees.

Concerns around business continuity are top of mind for leaders, with 31 percent saying they need guidance to better understand which systems can be integrated and extracted into workflows without disruption.

Nearly two thirds of business leaders (64 percent) agree that IT investments are often made in isolation, without full consideration of their impact. This leads to C-suite unease about the prospect of implementing automation technologies and their potential impact on other essential processes.

According to the report, banishing tedious tasks is not just about boosting employee productivity, it’s also a key factor in nurturing employee fulfilment and job satisfaction. When asked what factors would improve their fulfilment at work, a quarter of employees (29 percent) cited having the right tech to free up their time for more rewarding work.

A further 19 percent of employees also said having better software technology, including automation solutions, would make them less likely to consider leaving their current role in the next 12 months.