The urgency to use AI tools in daily workflows has grown so quickly that executives now rank it as a top concern, above inflation and the broader economy. But more than two-thirds of employees still have never used AI in their work.
These findings come from a global survey by Slack. The figures are striking, partly because of all the evidence that AI-powered technologies can make work better, faster, and more impactful. “Among desk workers who use AI tools, 81% say it’s improving their productivity,” the Workforce Lab from Slack reports. “And those who use AI show higher employee engagement and experience scores across the board, including 22% higher overall satisfaction.”
So what’s holding people back? One of the big factors is wariness. Only seven percent of these workers “consider the outputs of AI completely trustworthy for work-related tasks,” and more than one-third (35%) say the results “are only slightly or not at all trustworthy.”
Because I work with businesses across numerous industries as they adopt AI-powered technologies to transform their communications, I understand this reluctance. Few people want to use tools that could cause errors, which they may then be held responsible for. But I also know a key to solving this: embracing a culture of experimentation.
Provide Opportunities, Reduce Fear
This includes setting aside time for employees to try out new technologies, discover what they can do, and put their own ideas to the test. Manas Das, an analytics expert, wrote about this for the International Institute for Analytics, an independent research and advisory firm. He drew lessons from organizations that succeed in building AI skills in the workforce.
“To foster innovation and skill enhancement, top-performing employees are allocated a percentage of their working time to incubate, experiment, and pursue ideas,” Das explained. “This dedicated time allows them to upskill themselves while also exploring potential revenue streams for the company.”
Employees also need something else: The knowledge that not everything will work, and that that’s OK. They need to know that when they experiment, the company will have their back.
In a column published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), two leaders from Slack described this as building comfort with acknowledging when something doesn’t work. “Fostering a culture of AI experimentation means creating an environment where employees can explore, innovate, and learn without fear of failure or retribution,” Christina Janzer and Helen Kupp wrote.
The results can be powerful, virtually doubling the rate at which employees experiment with AI tools. “Workers who feel trusted by their employers are 94% more likely to have tried AI for work-related tasks,” Janzer and Kupp wrote. “Key to integrating AI in everyday work is giving employees the freedom to take risks, providing them with the resources they need like AI usage guidelines, and making sure they have the time to really be creative in their ideas.”
My colleagues and I have found that the more companies provide all this, the more they begin to adopt different kinds of AI-powered tools as well. Take customer lifecycle management (CLM) for example. AI can be essential for optimizing the customer journey. Ken McMahon, head of customer success at Nextiva, noted in a blog post, “Schedule regular reviews to assess your CLM strategy and identify areas for improvement. Embrace a culture of experimentation and be willing to test new approaches based on customer data and feedback.”
The same goes for tools that help people inside a company work and collaborate. “Improving team productivity is no easy task. It requires continuous effort, experimentation, and a strategy that produces long-term results,” wrote Chris Raeburn, our chief of strategic execution.
The world is moving into a time in which AI will become a staple of business and society. We don’t yet know everything it’s capable of. The most successful businesses will be those on the cusp of this new era, constantly evolving based on new discoveries as to what’s possible. As with previous transformations, from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age, the companies that turn into giant powerhouses will be visionary in how they embrace these changes.
There’s no more potent way to get there than to unleash the workforce. When organizations give their staff the time, resources, and backing to develop AI skills and formulate their own solutions that put AI to use, they maximize their chances of becoming the leaders in their industries.