The Real Reason Most of Your Team Won’t Engage with Generative AI (and How to Fix It)

Image generated by Midjourney

Our latest Engaige Readiness survey of people in the marketing industry shines more light on the barriers to greater gen AI adoption, and gives great guidance on how to get people “unstuck.”

While high-level concerns like the fear that “gen AI will ultimately homogenize our output”, “devalue creativity” or “lead to intellectual laziness in the workforce” add to people’s trepidation to embrace gen AI, our most recent data shows that they are not the actual barriers that most people are currently stuck behind.”

Happily, most people are actually stuck behind barriers that are much more tangible and easily addressable. For example, the data shows that by far the number one hesitation people have to using gen AI I their work right now is accuracy concerns: specifically the belief that generative AI routinely “hallucinates” and gives inaccurate answers that are impossible for the user to verify and source.  

It’s no surprise that people think this, because gen AI’s “hallucinations” have been a consistent theme in media coverage for several years now. It makes sense: If all I heard about gen AI was that it will bald-faced make things up and confidently present them as true, I wouldn’t use it either. 
 
But when we take people through a 15-minute tutorial on how to use grounded AI tools and simple prompting techniques that can be used to source and verify AI outputs, the fog lifts, the “inaccurate output” barriers drop quickly, and comfort and confidence using AI begins to build.

The data points out other tangible and addressable barriers to adoption that can be overcome, like the lack of a clear company policy on AI use and lack of access to “safe” AI tools.

Underlining the point, one of the clearest correlations in the data is the stark correlation between greater gen AI knowledge and positive attitude toward adopting gen AI tools at work. People who understand gen AI better are much more likely to be comfortable using it in general and using it in the workplace.

Bottom line: The sooner you can get your people comfortable and confident, the sooner your business can start gaining advantage. 
 
** Twenty44’s AI Readiness assessment tool is designed to help companies understand their workforce’s emotions and behavior around gen AI, focusing on barriers to adoption and how to effectively help people past them. Reach out if you’d like to have more insight into your company’s gen AI readiness and the barriers that your people are stuck behind. 

At twenty44, we’re obsessed with understanding the specific barriers to generative AI adoption in organizations and how to help people around them. Turns out some of the biggest barriers are easily addressable. 
 
Is your company locked out of gen AI productivity gains because your employees are stuck behind easily addressable usage barriers?