band aid over a crack in the pavement
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Microsoft’s fourth annual Work Trend Index, released this morning, provides an inside look at how AI is reshaping the way people work and how businesses are responding. It also serves as a time capsule of current workplace dynamics, with people struggling to keep up with increasing workloads, bad management practices and an excess of communications. Leaders are split between early adopters and those straddling the fence, sending mixed messages about AI’s role in their future plans.
The report marks the first collaboration between Microsoft and LinkedIn, with the latter tapping its data points on labor and hiring trends to show how people are adapting their skills and job searches to capitalize on the AI juggernaut and how recruiting practices are adjusting as well.
Let’s dig in.
Microsoft's Annual Work Trend Index
The report, “AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part,” is based on a survey of 31,000 workers worldwide, with additional insights coming from Fortune 500 customers, Microsoft 365 productivity signals and LinkedIn trends.
The first big takeaway: people are using generative AI at work — and they aren’t waiting for employers to provide it. Three out of four survey respondents use generative AI at work, and 78% of this cohort use their own tools because their workplace hasn’t yet invested. The trend remains steady across generations, with all four generations reporting bringing in non-sanctioned generative AI tools to work.
Work Trend Index graphic showing people across generations bringing their own AI tools to work
The report explains this surge in adoption in part to increasing workloads, the post-pandemic carry-over of meeting overload, excessive reliance on email as a communication channel and the continuation of after-hours work. “As AI becomes ubiquitous in the workplace, employees and businesses alike are under extreme pressure. The pace and intensity of work, which accelerated during the pandemic, has not eased, so employees are bringing their own AI to work,” wrote Microsoft’s Jared Spataro in the accompanying blog post.
Nearly 70% of respondents (68%) “struggle with the pace and volume of work” and 46% feel burned out. No wonder 46% of respondents worldwide are looking for new jobs — a figure that jumps to 85% in the U.S.
The results of generative AI in this context then stand out: “Users say AI helps them save time (90%), focus on their most important work (85%), be more creative (84%) and enjoy their work more (83%).”
However the responses also show AI-using employees fear for their job security, with over half (53%) afraid of sharing their use of generative AI to accomplish important tasks, due to the fear it would “make them look replaceable.”
Power Users Adopt Different Practices, Approaches
The research breaks down AI users under four umbrellas: generative AI skeptics, novices, experts and power users, each spending more time respectively using generative AI on any given day.
The habits of the power users understandably receive the greatest focus, with slightly more specific details on how generative AI is being applied included in this section.
Power users turn to AI to:
- Catch up on meetings (56%)
- Analyze information (51%)
- Design visual content (49%)
- Interact with customers (49%)
- Brainstorm or problem solve (37%)
These practices buy back 30 minutes or more a day for power users and result in overall improved attitudes about their workplace.
What's missing in the examination of these BYOAI habits is the quality of the output. Given the high rate of external tools being brought in, the question is left open as to whether the results are skewed by bias, incomplete data or falsehoods.
Work Trend Index: how AI use changes attitudes towards work
Employees are resourceful. Given the repeated mentions throughout the report of overwhelming workloads, the power users are clearly those employees who MacGyver solutions to otherwise unmanageable problems. As enterprise search expert Martin White once wrote, “The clue to your digital workplace problems lies in your employees’ workarounds.”
Power user habits are worth studying, not only as a sign of AI’s potential to augment — not replace — human labor, but also as a roadmap of what to fix in your workplace.
AI’s Impact on the Labor Market
Sixty-six percent of leaders said they would not hire someone without AI skills. By this, they don't mean technical AI skills, which saw a 323% increase in hiring in the last eight years. The skills aren’t specified beyond “AI aptitude” and “the skills to use generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot.” People are adjusting their LinkedIn profiles accordingly, with a 142 time increase in LinkedIn members adding skills related to generative AI to their profiles.
Yet these same leaders aren't necessarily showing the same level of commitment within their company's practices. The report highlights the wide gap between the two, with almost half of leaders (45%) not having invested in AI for their employees and only 25% planning to offer training on AI this year. While leaders understand the potential of AI, 60% worry their company lacks a vision to implement it.
Of people using AI at work, only 39% have received training on how to use it. Power users, by contrast, are 48% more likely to have access to company provided training on AI — except in the U.S., where that number drops to 18%.
Once again, people are not waiting on employers to improve their AI skills. The last six months saw a 160% increase in non-technical people taking LinkedIn Learning courses to build AI aptitude, driven by the belief that AI skills will keep them competitive in a tight labor market (76%) and will broaden their job opportunities (79%).
Mandalay Bay Convention Center Las Vegas
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort
Deskless workers communication
Now Comes the Hard Part
“We’ve come to the hard part of any tech disruption: moving past experimentation to business transformation,” reads the opening of the report. Yet as I read the report, I was reminded of the line Mandy Patankin's character, Inigo Montoya, delivers in “The Princess Bride”: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The behavior described throughout the report is not one of transformation, on leaders’ or employees' parts. Power users are not fundamentally rethinking how work is done but rather applying AI to symptoms of bad practices — unrealistic workloads, excessive communications and constant context switching — in the hopes of a cure.
The promise of AI to free people from drudgery is noble, but assumes that the scale of drudgery in our work lives is inevitable.
The report is rich with data but lacks context in some critical areas. The underlying assumption that AI is disrupting the workplace is true, but the idea that it is a disruption employees universally welcome — as suggested by the high adoption numbers — is belied by the poor working conditions, job instability and sense of inevitability driving said adoption. Let's be clear: the problem is not the technology. It will inevitably change the way we work. But not when layered onto bad management practices and overstuffed technology stacks.
The conclusion of the report is that “fortune favors the bold.” The implication is early adopters in the business world will gain a leading edge. At no point is it suggested businesses should fix the unrealistic workloads, communication overload and poor management practices driving employees to bring in unsanctioned tools in search of relief. While AI will clearly change how work gets done, I suspect companies that clear up their houses before exploring new ways of work will be the ones fortune will truly favor.
