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AI Will Lighten Workloads & Drive Innovation
Microsoft’s
latest Work Trend Index reveals how, alongside tools like
Co-Pilot, AI is poised to create a whole new way of working
for New Zealand. As the intensity of work increases,
the pace which we do business has accelerated faster than
humans can keep up with and this is impacting innovation,
according to a new report from Microsoft. However, the
findings from the 2023 New Zealand Work Trend Index report:
“Will
AI Fix Work?” have also confirmed that globally,
employees and leaders see AI as an opportunity, not a
threat. "As work evolves with AI, so must we. We want
to help business leaders and workers better understand the
opportunities around AI, and what steps they need to take to
embrace it fully,” said Jane Mackarell, Microsoft’s ANZ
Director of Modern Work and Surface . The report
shares three key insights for business leaders as they look
to understand and responsibly adopt AI for their
organisation: Digital debt is costing us innovation:
Over half of New Zealanders (58%) have struggled with
finding time and energy to get their work done, and those
workers are 2.6 times more likely to say they struggle with
innovation, with business leaders (68%) expressing their
concerns around this. An unexpected AI-employee
alliance emerges: While 45% of New Zealanders say they’re
worried AI will end up replacing their jobs, 3 in 4 people
are comfortable using AI to support their role.
Additionally, 62% of Kiwis said they would delegate as much
work to AI as possible to lessen their workloads, suggesting
they are optimistic about the role of AI in the workplace.
Business leaders also indicated AI would be of value to the
workplace, helping to boost productivity. Work will
demand a new AI aptitude: Findings revealed employees feel
they need to be educated with new core competencies in AI,
saying they currently don’t have the right capabilities to
get their work done (61%). Leaders throughout New Zealand
(76%) say employees they hire will need new skills to be
prepared for the growth of AI. “What the research
shows is that AI represents a whole new way of working,
freeing us from digital debt and fuelling innovation, but
we’ve got to invest in helping workers understand how to
use it first.” “The volume of data, emails and
chat conversations we’re expected to keep up with has
outpaced our ability to process information efficiently.
There’s an opportunity to make our existing communications
more productive, as every minute spent managing this digital
debt is a minute not spent on creative, innovative or
impactful work. When we free the mind, we give ourselves the
space to think strategically, and that’s where AI has a
role to play,” said Jane. To empower businesses in
the AI era, Microsoft is also introducing the Microsoft
365 Copilot Early Access Program with an initial wave of
600 enterprise customers worldwide in an invitation-only
paid preview program. In addition, new capabilities will be
added to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft
Viva. "Next-generation AI promises to lift the weight
of work, and organisations that move first to embrace it
will dramatically increase creativity and productivity for
everyone. Microsoft 365 Copilot was launched earlier this
year, bringing powerful new generative AI capabilities to
apps people use every day like Microsoft Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams and more,” said
Jane. The 2023 report derived results from an external
study of 31,000 people in 31 countries, including 1,000
Kiwis across multiple industries. The report unearthed key
insights business leaders should consider as they look to
understand and responsibly adopt AI for their
organisation.
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