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ZDNET's key takeaways
Growing use of AI = isn't leading to big organizational wins.
AI hype clashes with reality as most businesses don't see ROI.
The key to success involves top-down and bottom-up control.
AI has become an essential tool in many workers' day-to-day lives. But despite this widespread use, very few companies say the technology is delivering major, organization-wide benefits.
According to a new study from software company Atlassian, daily usage of AI among individual workers has doubled over the past year, and the number of people who regard the technology as "useless" has dropped by 78%. Given those numbers, one might assume that businesses as a whole have been reaping huge benefits. If most individual workers are praising AI and its impact on their personal productivity, then surely that must add up to big wins for workforces as a whole, right?
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Paradoxically, the study found the opposite to be true: While individual use of AI soars, 96% of businesses "have not seen dramatic improvements in organizational efficiency, innovation, or work quality," according to the report.
Just 'bells and whistles'
Only 3% of executives surveyed said AI has delivered "transformational change" in organizational efficiency, while even fewer (2%) said they've noticed dramatic improvements in the quality of the work across their teams.
"I'm not seeing any kind of major transformational change in how teams are operating," said one of the executives surveyed by Atlassian, who was quoted anonymously in the company's report. "They're basically operating in the same way just with some extra bells and whistles."
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At the same time, AI has also been introducing new digital security concerns. One study published last month -- to cite just one recent example -- found that close to half (43%) of people surveyed have shared sensitive organizational data with AI tools.
Hype meets reality
The Atlassian study -- which was based on a survey of 12,000 knowledge workers across six countries, and 180 Fortune 1,000 executives -- arrives at a time when exuberant promises about AI are starting to clash head-on with a much more sobering reality.
For years, AI has been hyped by tech developers as a quick and reliable catalyst for improving individual and organizational efficiency. Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have promoted AI agents and other enterprise-facing tools as parts of a technological paradigm shift that will unlock new levels of productivity among employees, while simultaneously liberating them from drudgery so they can focus on more important and meaningful work.
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In short order, the technology has been widely adopted across businesses, usually automating monotonous background tasks, such as the logistical minutiae that come with mergers and acquisitions. But a growing body of data is showing that widespread adoption doesn't necessarily translate to significant ROI. A study from MIT published in August, for example, found that 95% of businesses' internal AI initiatives have failed to deliver any meaningful results.
Balancing top-down and bottom-up control
While it's certainly eye-opening to learn that the vast majority of businesses' internal AI efforts haven't gone anywhere, it's far more informative to study the reasons behind the outliers' success. What can Atlassian's new study tell us about the tiny minority of companies whose use of AI has amounted to more than mere "extra bells and whistles"?
As you might expect from a company selling workplace collaboration software (it owns Trello and Jira, among other platforms), Atlassian says one of the key factors is what it describes in its report as "AI-powered coordination" -- using the technology as a bridge between individual workers and across teams, so that organizations as a whole can operate more seamlessly.
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The companies that are seeing the greatest gains from their use of AI, according to Atlassian's report, have turned it into "the connective layer across [their] organization -- bridging silos, driving action on the right context, and aligning everyone around shared goals."
In that same vein, the company also traces organization-wide success back to the use of a single, centralized platform to oversee the use of AI, and to a company culture which allows individual employees to experiment with the technology until they figure out how to optimally fit it into their existing workflows.
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In other words, Atlassian's study suggests that when it comes to AI, businesses should aim for a blend of top-down and bottom-up implementation. That means using the technology to enhance collaboration between teams, and overseeing the whole show ideally through a centralized platform, while at the same time allowing individual employees to figure out how the technology can best suit and serve them in their unique roles.
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The August MIT study, incidentally, found that an overemphasis on top-down implementation of AI was a key factor preventing businesses from achieving meaningful ROI through their use of the technology.