Annual UiPath survey finds employees believe GenAI tools have greater context when combined with business automation
UiPath, a leading enterprise automation and AI software company, today published its annual Global Knowledge Worker Survey that uncovers how employees are using generative AI (GenAI), the shortcomings and risks of the technology, and the opportunity for combining GenAI with business automation.
The report—which is based on a survey of more than 9,000 workers from around the world—revealed that employees who use GenAI tools are saving more time in their workdays. However, those using both GenAI and business automation together achieve substantially more significant benefits.
While GenAI promises to revolutionize operations across industries, there is a lack of enterprise direction and training on the technology, leading to mistrust across global workforces. Currently, less than half (45%) of workers have been offered training or guidelines on how to use GenAI. Similarly, only 44% of employees think that GenAI has the context needed from their business’s data to support processes and drive value—though this number increases to 85% when employees use GenAI and business automation together.
“The technology must also be trusted and actionable—which is where business automation platforms serve as a critical foundation. The combination of these two technologies is a key differentiator for companies to maximize business value from GenAI and other AI models while empowering employees.”
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Other key findings from this year’s report:
- GenAI provides significant time-saving benefits to workers: 42% of respondents who have implemented GenAI have saved 10 or more hours each week. By freeing up time in their days, almost half of workers (48%) have been able to focus on more creative tasks. Regionally, workers in Singapore and Hong Kong have seen the greatest time-saving benefits from implementing GenAI tools.
- The combination of GenAI and business automation maximizes the business value: When asked if employees have experienced any benefits from using GenAI and business automation software, respondents said greater productivity/get tasks done faster (43%), more accurate work (39%), and improved work/life balance (38%). When workers use the technologies together, 55% saved 10+ hours at work per week, compared to 31% of those who use only GenAI and 33% of those who use only business automation.
- However, there is a lack of trust around GenAI tools: Less than half (48%) of respondents indicate that they trust the outputs they get from GenAI tools. Regionally, Japan (26%), Germany (47%), and the U.S. (48%) trust GenAI’s outputs the least, and Singapore (67%), Korea (63%), and Hong Kong (62%) have the greatest trust in GenAI’s outputs.
- GenAI is being applied across departments and for a variety of processes: The most common types of tasks employees use GenAI for include drafting communications (38%), brainstorming (34%), and summarizing long-form content (30%).
“GenAI tools are presenting an incredible opportunity for organizations to increase productivity and efficiencies, but employees must be provided with the proper training and upskilling opportunities to harness the full power of this technology,” said Brigette McInnis-Day, Chief People Officer at UiPath. “The technology must also be trusted and actionable—which is where business automation platforms serve as a critical foundation. The combination of these two technologies is a key differentiator for companies to maximize business value from GenAI and other AI models while empowering employees.”
The UiPath survey also uncovered that employees are feeling more burnout than ever before, with almost a third (32%) of respondents feeling extremely or very burnt out—compared to 29% of employees last year. GenAI presents an opportunity to alleviate the burdensome tasks that contribute to this issue; however, GenAI deployments will only be successful if workers are trained.
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