Usage is climbing while enthusiasm cools, according to a survey by Wharton Human-AI Research and the research firm GBK Collective, reported by Fortune's Nick Lichtenberg on October 13. Respondents were managers and above at large US companies. The page does not state the sample size, and annual waves are separate samples, not a panel tracking the same people.
Use up, excitement down
Daily AI use among managers and above rose to 62% from 46% the prior year. The share describing themselves as excited fell eight points to 51%, while 25% called themselves skeptical and 44% cautious. Optimism held steady at 59%. Prasanna Tambe, codirector of Wharton Human-AI Research, said: “The amazement is kind of wearing off a little bit.”
Returns and accountability
Eighty percent reported positive financial returns, but only 28% called them strongly positive. Departments that measure AI by growth metrics were far likelier to report strongly positive returns, 35%, than those measuring efficiency alone, 13%. On who is most responsible for a consequential autonomous AI error, 28% named a governance or risk team, 26% the deploying employee's manager and 25% the employee. One in five managers and directors said no one was clearly accountable or they did not know, compared with 3% of VPs and above.
How AI is being used
Forty-eight percent said AI performed work that a human approved before execution, 35% said AI made suggestions while a person made final calls, and only 17% reported autonomous operation with sampling or real-time monitoring. Some 72% said their focus had shifted from creating AI outputs to managing them.
Hiring and training
A third of managers and above said their departments had slowed or frozen hiring due to AI, and 24% expected fewer entry-level hires over two to five years versus 14% for executive hires. Seventy-eight percent of managers and above said employees received adequate AI training, but only 56% of entry- and mid-level employees agreed. Junior employees were surveyed for the first time, and the groups were not matched within companies. Fifty-two percent said their department had changed its management structure because of AI.
Context
Fortune pairs the findings with a Gallup survey from April in which 51% of Americans ages 14 to 29 used generative AI at least weekly and excitement fell 14 points year over year.
Source: Fortune. This is an AI Business Watch summary of the original report.