WalkMe Survey Reveals Workplace AI SOS: We Need Help Along The Way!
We surveyed more than a thousand Americans to find out how they’re using AI at work. Here’s what we discovered:
More than half of respondents surveyed are using AI at work with 86% craving a copilot’s help
Our June 2024 survey found that 91% failed to effectively use AI at work on the first try. The survey uncovers clues into the challenges companies face when attempting AI transformation at scale.
On the one hand, more than half of respondents (54%) say they use AI tools at work, (51%) have managers that encourage AI usage, and 51% get feedback that their work product has improved. On the other hand, few respondents consider themselves AI experts, even fewer report having received extensive training on AI, and for most respondents, it took four or five tries before they felt they were able to make their work easier or better using AI.
“With most employees using AI at work, we wanted to understand their needs as we launched WalkMeX, the premier contextual copilot that aims to democratize AI for all individuals regardless of their comfort level with technology,” said Dan Adika, CEO & Co-founder WalkMe. “What we discovered is that, while many Americans are using AI, they don’t feel like they’re experts, and the vast majority believe their work product would be better if they had help along the way.”
AI usage at work is rampant, and employees consider it important to their future:
- 41% say they use AI tools daily.
- 84% think AI is becoming more important to advance one’s career.
- 80% reported feeling either confident (49%) or very confident (33%) using AI at work.
But respondents report needing helping to truly reap the benefits of AI:
- Only 15% of workers believe they are AI experts.
- Only 7% say they had received extensive training on AI.
- Only 9% reported getting the results they needed out of AI on their first try.
Importantly, a strong majority of respondents (86%) reveal they would be more likely to use AI if the tools proactively guided them in the flow of work.
There seems to be a false sense of confidence among Americans using AI at work. They report feeling confident using it, while few feel that they are experts. The true potential of AI adoption at scale in the workplace remains unseen and self-reported confidence among employees may mask the urgency.
Overall, the findings show that generative AI isn’t the plug-and-play tool many believe it to be. If it were, then we’d be seeing more than 9% of respondents getting it right the right time.
It’s also clear that American workers need and are open to receiving more proactive assistance in the flow of work.
About the survey
The survey was commissioned by WalkMe and orchestrated by Propeller Insights. Propeller Insights is a full-service market research firm based in Los Angeles. Using quantitative and qualitative methodologies to measure and analyze marketplace and consumer opinions, they work extensively across industries such as technology, travel, brand intelligence, entertainment/media, retail, and consumer packaged goods. Propeller conducted its national online survey for WalkMe of 1,013 U.S. adults from June 5, 2024 to June 7, 2024. Survey responses were nationally representative of the U.S. population for age, gender, region, and ethnicity. The maximum margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Learn more about WalkMeX, the only contextual, cross-app copilot designed for the enterprise.