Why IT teams are leading workplace adoption of AI
When it comes to using AI on the job, IT teams are showing by doing
While public and consumer trust in AI has wavered in recent years, confidence and trust in the technology is soaring in one specific area: the workplace.
That’s one of the big takeaways from Freshworks’ latest Global AI Workplace Report, which surveyed over 4,000 knowledge workers across multiple industries and seven countries about how they’re using AI on the job and what benefits they are seeing thus far.
More than half (53%) of all employees reported a positive shift in their opinion of AI in 2024. Who’s driving this attitude boost? As the study suggests, it’s hard-working IT teams who are getting significant value out of using AI themselves, while also playing a key role in getting AI into the hands of all employees.
One in three employees, for example, credit their company’s IT professionals for their increased trust of AI. And a whopping 73% of employees say they trust their IT team to make sure their AI tools deliver quality results, the survey finds.
This increase in trust comes at a crucial time for organizations, says Mark Settle, an author and former CIO of Okta, BMC Software, and several other large enterprise companies. Building a foundation of trust will not only boost wider adoption of AI in organizations, but also ease the way for the coming wave of AI agents.
“The next phase of AI-enabled tools will perform significant aspects of an individual's job for them,” says Settle. “Acceptance and adoption of this next wave will likely be more challenging, much like the initial introduction of robotic process automation (RPA) technology was challenging.”
As the Freshworks report suggests, IT teams are at the vanguard of leading this next wave of AI—and transforming the culture for future adoption.
Productivity dividend
Some of the report’s findings about the critical role of IT teams aren’t immediately surprising. After all, as early adopters of every type of business technology, IT groups are naturally positioned to evangelize for those technologies when they work and deliver value.
These findings show that AI is helping to restore purpose and positivity in people’s work.
Murali Swaminathan
CTO at Freshworks
AI is already improving IT workers’ experience: 85% of IT employees report that AI is making their workday more positive and enjoyable. Thanks to their hands-on AI usage, IT teams also say they now have more time to accomplish complex work, do more creative work and solve harder challenges.
“They see how it can pay immediate dividends in software engineering, IT service desk operations, and the personal productivity of individual IT employees,” adds Settle. “It’s a ‘three-way’ payoff.”
More than any other business function, IT teams report that AI-powered chatbots in particular are speeding up their day-to-day workflows. More than 60% say chatbots have become invaluable to managing their workload because they can deflect bulk queries to AI and focus more on the ones that need a human touch.
“This productivity dividend from AI isn’t limited to IT,” says Freshworks CTO Murali Swaminathan. “These findings show that AI is helping to restore purpose and positivity in people’s work. Nearly all workers we surveyed say they now want to offload some part of their workload to AI.”
Read also: Murali Swaminathan on how ‘people-first AI’ creates competitive advantage
More time for higher-level tasks
As the report reveals, AI isn’t just saving them time—it’s unlocking opportunities to lean into higher-level strategic tasks. One in three IT workers, for example, say that a key benefit of AI is that it gives them more time to directly coach other employees. That direct coaching includes introducing other employees to AI tools. Nearly half (46%) of IT workers say they have recommended a new AI app to another employee to reduce their busywork.
This one-on-one coaching is clearly having a positive impact. It’s also filling an upskilling gap as reported by the general workforce.
“In my opinion, there is a need for some formal training in the use of gen AI tools to learn how to frame prompts with the context, language and specificity that will yield the best responses,” adds Settle. “Some have likened this to learning a foreign language, and I would agree.”
The report suggests that most companies need to invest more in this area. Only 39% of employees overall report that their company offers ongoing training for AI applications and software, while just 34% provide security training for AI software, and 32% offer onboarding for AI software and apps.
In fact, IT workers pinpoint this as their own greatest barrier to fostering an AI culture. Nearly 8 in 10 IT employees admit that it’s difficult to get an organization to fully integrate AI into their company workloads. According to IT workers surveyed, a lack of upfront training is the biggest difficulty in attempting to integrate AI-support into their organizations (55%).
Regardless, IT teams are successfully planting the seeds for a culture of AI trust. As the report suggests, leaders need to take the next step by investing in upskilling to let them take root.
