Artificial intelligence, training doubles productivity

Artificial intelligence increases the productivity of workers, allowing them to save seven and a half hours per week to perform their tasks and companies to save up to $18,000 per year per employee. For workers who undergo training, the savings are up to 11 hours per week and the financial savings can be greatly amplified through training, a lever capable of doubling productivity. These are the findings of a report entitled 'AI, Diversity and Productivity: Bridging the Generation Gap 2025', produced by the London School of Economics (LSE) in collaboration with Protiviti, a multinational management consulting firm that is part of the Nyse-listed Robert Half Group. This is an extensive study, of which the report is the second instalment, following the first which was dedicated to the impact of demographics. A third one is also planned for the coming months, which will delve into the skills of the future also in the light of the major changes that will impact the way of working.

As Alessandro Cencioni, managing director of Protiviti Italia, explains, 'the study explores the different generational approach to artificial intelligence, a topic that has remained under the radar but is of great relevance in organisations. The sense of the study is to intercept how the 4 generations in the companies relate to Ai and cohabit, since they have very different attitudes to work, while in the companies on the one hand there is the need to continue to hire people belonging to the more mature age brackets and on the other hand to attract the younger ones'. More than 3,000 managers in 30 countries were interviewed to produce the report, including Italy, from which 14% of the sample comes. From the UK comes 34%, from the US 35%, from Germany 7%, and from other countries 10%.

In companies, Ai 'is now a fact of life, so much so that 70% of people use it at work and 78% of companies invest in generative Ai technologies,' says Cencioni. Analysing the 70% of users, a strong generational difference emerges: we go from Generation Z, where 82% use Ai, to 52% of boomers, with a gap of 30 points between the two generations. In the middle are the millennials with 73% of users and Gen X with 60%'. Add to this the fact that there is a definite over-representation of young people, Generation Z, in the teams involved in the development of Ai-related projects where more than 50% of the members belong to the latter. However, this generation gap can have an impact on improving productivity at work, because the use of Ai first and foremost 'improves productivity. We have found that on average, the time saved by workers in carrying out their tasks is 20 per cent and therefore productivity through the use of Ai increases in a linear fashion. That's kind of the promise of Ai. "It is also important to note that this 20 per cent efficiency is the average between the 14 per cent increase in productivity among those who do not train and the 28 per cent increase among those who do train," notes Cencioni. "The first fundamental aspect is therefore that training allows us to recover and achieve greater efficiency objectives in a similar way in the different generational groups. We have generations that are more or less ready, but if we train them the recovery of productivity is transversal, and that is precisely why companies must invest in training regardless of the profile of their resources, even in terms of age'. On this, a peculiarity of Italy emerges with respect to the international context: while in our country we tend to train more seniors, abroad training is in fact more aimed at the younger generations.

Talking about companies' initiatives and investments in Ai projects, a fairly critical data emerges on their success, even though it must be taken into account that we are still in an experimental phase. In fact, the report shows that 78% of companies invest in Ai, but 42% of initiatives fail, so almost one in two. "We must not imagine the introduction of Ai as something already mature," Cencioni interprets, "We must assess what facilitates the success of initiatives. Research allows us to say that when teams dealing with Ai have a high generational diversity 77% of initiatives are successful, while in teams with low diversity the figure stops at 66%. Bringing different generations together creates value not only in the use of artificial intelligence, but also in the motivational aspects. It emerges how at all levels being part of Ai initiatives also leads to a better sense of belonging to the company and therefore Ai can be a lever to motivate talents and retain them'.

The report also goes as far as to identify the barriers to the introduction of Ai. By far the decisive element is the lack of trust linked to the perception as a 'black box', i.e. an 'unknown box' that is not known to generate its own results. 'Obviously this mistrust is higher in the older generations than in the younger ones,' explains Cencioni. 'What emerges, however, is that trust increases with use. In those who use Ai, confidence is 49 per cent, in those who do not use it it stops at 20 per cent. So using and experimenting creates awareness and breaks down what is the biggest barrier to the introduction of these technologies'.