A new study by the British Standards Institution (BSI) has found that UK business leaders tend to exhibit more caution about AI than their peers in other countries. The report, entitled ‘Evolving Together: Flourishing in the AI Workforce,’ surveyed 932 business leaders (at management level or above) across nine countries to evaluate the anticipated impact of AI on work. It revealed that 77% of respondents are wary of job displacement due to AI. However, the majority of them (72%) favour the adoption of AI tools at the cost of the loss of some jobs. Around 69% of the British respondents feel the same.
Overall, 83% of the leaders agreed that some manual roles would change because of AI. However, only 69% of respondents in the UK agreed with this premise. Meanwhile, around 73% of all respondents see AI as an opportunity rather than a risk – though business leaders in the UK (34%), France (35%) and Japan (38%) are relatively more concerned about the risks that AI poses.
The report also found that the majority of respondents in the US (62%), China (64%) and India (65%) expect AI to be used in the next five years to boost productivity and efficiency.
“The world of work is changing, shaped by demographic shifts bringing growing age diversity alongside new attitudes and expectations of when, how and where work is done,” said the BSI’s human and social sustainability global head, Kate Field. “AI-powered technologies have the power to transform the way we work across all sectors and markets, and we can expect them to shape how companies recruit staff, manage performance, train employees and more.”
The research also found that 91% of the respondents are planning to invest in AI in the next five years. It also highlighted the need to upskill the workforce by using AI tools as 74% of the business leaders feel that individuals with no expertise will have a negative impact on their career progression.
More than three-quarters of the surveyed businesses already provide some form of training to the employees, the BSI study concluded.
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