Business leaders are ecstatic about the promise of AI in the workplace. It has the potential to all but eliminate busywork and dramatically increase productivity—if they could only get their own workers on board. 

A staggering 96% of executives feel it’s urgent to integrate AI across their business operations, according to a new report from Slack, a cloud-based communications platform. That’s a seven-fold increase since September of 2023, and the proportion of executives aiming to incorporate the new tech within the next 18 months rose from 5% to 35% over that same time period. In fact, figuring out how to implement AI within their own workforces beat out other top executive concerns including inflation or the economy.

“It’s not surprising to me that the urgency has increased that dramatically over the last six months,” Christina Janzer, head of Slack Workforce Labs, the company’s research subsidiary, tells Fortune. “There’s so much hype and excitement. We’re already seeing that AI can make workers more productive.”

But that C-suite enthusiasm doesn’t match the pace at which their employees are actually learning the new tech. More than two thirds of desk workers say they have never used AI in their jobs, according to the report, and there are a few different factors contributing to that chasm. 

Staffers have anxieties around privacy and data security, like compromising client information and being monitored during work hours. But the biggest thing holding employees back is their mistrust over the new tech’s quality and accuracy. Only 7% of desk workers believe the outputs from AI are completely trustworthy to assist them in work-related tasks, and 35% find the results only slightly reliable or not credible at all, according to the report. And their fears may be warranted—some tools weren’t in a great position to be rolled out to users, and spread disinformation or harmful language which only heightened doubts of AI’s dependability.

Janzer also chalks up worker resistance and lack of experience with the tools to employers’ failures to implement meaningful AI strategies, and educate their workers. That lack of upskilling has contributed to a lack of trust. 

“This is a great reminder that you can’t just introduce new technology and expect to see the productivity benefits right away. Employers need to put in the work in order for AI to work,” she says. “If you don’t have the proper training to understand what AI is, how it works, and where’s this data coming from, it’s really hard to develop trust for the tool.”

The report notes that workers who are upskilled with the tech are seven times more likely to have faith in the outcomes. 

To foster stronger AI adoption among workforces, Janzer says that executives should establish clear AI policies, create a safe space for novice users, train employees with the tools, and build employer-employee trust that the tech won’t replace them.

“Our message to employers really is: start with training,” she says. “That is what’s going to enable your workforce to really become much more effective, trusting of AI, and ultimately productive.”

Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com

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