In business there is an old joke of a consultant who borrows your watch to tell you the time, something you could have easily done yourself. Workplace AI tools appear to be following the same playbook. For all the excitement about what the future of AI may hold, and for all the fear about what risks the technology may pose, AI today is very often assisting rather mundane tasks. According to a recent survey published by the Wharton School of Business, weekly users of AI tools in the workplace rose from 37% in 2023 to 73% in 2024. At 64%, the most popular use case for AI in the workplace is the writing and editing of documents or proposals. Building on the previously popular buzzword, big data, 62% of survey respondents reporting using AI to aid data analysis. Notably, 94% of purchasing managers reported using AI in 2024, up from 50% last year.
Source: Wharton University, October 2024.