77% of Global Workers Trust AI to Operate Autonomously—Research

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

New research conducted by Salesforce has revealed that 77 per cent of workers across the globe trust Artificial Intelligence (AI) to do almost half of their work tasks.

The study surveyed nearly 6,000 people around the world and it discovered that workers are excited about an AI-powered future, though they stressed the importance of a human touch.

They prefer AI to complete time-saving tasks autonomously, like writing code, uncovering data insights, and drafting written communications, though still want tasks like onboarding, training, and data security to remain under the watch of humans.

“Workers are excited about an AI-powered future and the research shows us that human engagement can help us get there.

“By empowering humans at the helm of today’s AI systems, we can build trust and drive adoption – enabling workers to unlock all that AI has to offer,” Salesforce Director for Solutions Engineering Africa, Ms Linda Saunders, commented on the new report.

Analysis of the research showed that leaders trust AI to do more of their work than employees do, and trust AI to do 51 per cent of their work, while rank-and-file workers trust AI to do 40 per cent.

It was observed that 10 per cent of global workers trust AI to operate autonomously today, 26 per cent will trust AI to operate autonomously in less than three years, and 41 per cent want AI to operate autonomously in three or more years.

Further, while workers prefer AI-human collaboration, they’re starting to trust AI to handle certain tasks alone, and 54 per cent trust humans and AI to do most work tasks together.

When asked if these workers trusted AI to do any of these same tasks autonomously, 15 per cent trust AI to write code autonomously, 13 per cent want AI to uncover data insights on its own, 12 per cent trust AI to develop internal and external communications without a human, and 1nother 12 per cent trust autonomous AI to act as their personal assistant.

The study revealed that concerns about AI may come from a lack of understanding, as 54 per cent of global workers say they do not know how AI is implemented or governed in their workplace.

However, workers who are knowledgeable about how AI is implemented and governed in their workplace are five times more likely to say they will trust AI to operate autonomously within the next two years than those who are not knowledgeable.