Ai Use Is Up, But Organizations Still Aren't Seeing Gains, Atlassian Study Finds

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Growing usage of AI = isn't starring to large organizational wins.
• AI hype clashes pinch reality arsenic astir businesses don't spot ROI.
• The cardinal to occurrence involves top-down and bottom-up control. 

AI has go an basal instrumentality successful galore workers' day-to-day lives. But contempt this wide use, very fewer companies opportunity nan exertion is delivering major, organization-wide benefits.

According to a new study from package institution Atlassian, regular usage of AI among individual workers has doubled complete nan past year, and nan number of group who respect nan exertion arsenic "useless" has dropped by 78%. Given those numbers, 1 mightiness presume that businesses arsenic a full person been reaping immense benefits. If astir individual workers are praising AI and its effect connected their individual productivity, past surely that must adhd up to large wins for workforces arsenic a whole, right?

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Paradoxically, nan study recovered nan other to beryllium true: While individual usage of AI soars, 96% of businesses "have not seen melodramatic improvements successful organizational efficiency, innovation, aliases activity quality," according to nan report.

Just 'bells and whistles'

Only 3% of executives surveyed said AI has delivered "transformational change" successful organizational efficiency, while moreover less (2%) said they've noticed melodramatic improvements successful nan value of nan activity crossed their teams.

"I'm not seeing immoderate benignant of awesome transformational alteration successful really teams are operating," said 1 of nan executives surveyed by Atlassian, who was quoted anonymously successful nan company's report. "They're fundamentally operating successful nan aforesaid measurement conscionable pinch immoderate other bells and whistles." 

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At nan aforesaid time, AI has besides been introducing caller integer information concerns. One study published past period -- to mention conscionable 1 caller illustration -- recovered that adjacent to half (43%) of group surveyed have shared delicate organizational information pinch AI tools.

Hype meets reality

The Atlassian study -- which was based connected a study of 12,000 knowledge workers crossed six countries, and 180 Fortune 1,000 executives -- arrives astatine a clip erstwhile exuberant promises astir AI are starting to conflict head-on pinch a overmuch much sobering reality.

For years, AI has been hyped by tech developers arsenic a speedy and reliable catalyst for improving individual and organizational efficiency. Companies for illustration OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google person promoted AI agents and different enterprise-facing devices arsenic parts of a technological paradigm displacement that will unlock caller levels of productivity among employees, while simultaneously liberating them from drudgery truthful they tin attraction connected much important and meaningful work. 

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In short order, nan exertion has been wide adopted crossed businesses, usually automating monotonous inheritance tasks, specified arsenic nan logistical minutiae that travel pinch mergers and acquisitions. But a increasing assemblage of information is showing that wide take doesn't needfully construe to important ROI. A study from MIT published successful August, for example, recovered that 95% of businesses' soul AI initiatives have failed to present immoderate meaningful results. 

Balancing top-down and bottom-up control

While it's surely eye-opening to study that nan immense mostly of businesses' soul AI efforts haven't gone anywhere, it's acold much informative to study nan reasons down nan outliers' success. What tin Atlassian's caller study show america astir nan mini number of companies whose usage of AI has amounted to much than specified "extra bells and whistles"?

As you mightiness expect from a institution trading workplace collaboration package (it owns Trello and Jira, among different platforms), Atlassian says 1 of nan cardinal factors is what it describes successful its study arsenic "AI-powered coordination" -- utilizing nan exertion arsenic a span betwixt individual workers and crossed teams, truthful that organizations arsenic a full tin run much seamlessly.

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The companies that are seeing nan top gains from their usage of AI, according to Atlassian's report, person turned it into "the connective furniture crossed [their] statement -- bridging silos, driving action connected nan correct context, and aligning everyone astir shared goals."

In that aforesaid vein, nan institution besides traces organization-wide occurrence backmost to nan usage of a single, centralized level to oversee nan usage of AI, and to a institution civilization which allows individual labor to research pinch nan exertion until they fig retired really to optimally fresh it into their existing workflows.

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In different words, Atlassian's study suggests that erstwhile it comes to AI, businesses should purpose for a blend of top-down and bottom-up implementation. That intends utilizing nan exertion to heighten collaboration betwixt teams, and overseeing nan full show ideally done a centralized platform, while astatine nan aforesaid clip allowing individual labor to fig retired really nan exertion tin champion suit and service them successful their unsocial roles.

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The August MIT study, incidentally, recovered that an overemphasis connected top-down implementation of AI was a cardinal facet preventing businesses from achieving meaningful ROI done their usage of nan technology.