AI at work from the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre

AI at work from the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre

The UK risks a growing divide between organisations who have invested in new, artificial intelligence-enabled digital technologies and those who haven’t.

New research from the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) at the University of Sussex Business School suggests that only 36% of UK employers have invested in AI-enabled technologies like industrial robots, chat bots, smart assistants, and cloud computing over the past five years.

The nationally represented survey, carried out between November 2021 and June 2022, also found that just 10% of employers who hadn’t already invested in AI-enabled technologies were planning to invest in the next two years.

The Employers Digital Practices at Work: First Findings report is an important output of the Digit Centre, which is co-led by the Business School.

Low investment in digital skills

The new data also points to a growing skills problem. Less than 10% of employers anticipated a need to make an investment in digital skills training in the coming years, despite most finding it fairly or very difficult to recruit people with the right skills. Almost 60% of employers reported that none of their employees had received formal digital skills training in the past year.

The main reasons for investing were improving efficiency, productivity and product and service quality, according to the

survey. On the other hand, the key reasons for non-investment were AI being irrelevant to the business activity, wider business risks and the nature of skills demanded.

However, there was little evidence to suggest that investing in AI-enabled technology leads to job losses. In fact, digital adopters were more likely to have increased their employment in the five-year period before the survey.

Professor Jacqueline O'Reilly, Co-Director of the Digit Centre, said: "AI is in the news every day but there has been little reliable data about the extent to which, and how, it is being used by UK employers. This major new survey is an important, nationally representative source of data for policymakers grappling with the implications of rapidly evolving technologies."

Other key findings of the study show that:

The use of traditional information and communication technologies was widespread, with desktop computers, portable devices, and smart phones ubiquitous. More than 90 per cent of employers reported that they used desktop computers. In contrast, more novel forms of ICT hardware, such as wearables, were much less common, adopted by around a fifth (22%) of employers.

Just over a third of employers had invested in AIenabled technology in the past five years.

Below photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

"AI is in the news every day but there has been little reliable data about the extent to which, and how, it is being used by UK employers."

These are ‘digital adopters’. Cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT) were by far the most popular types of new digital technologies (79% and 59% of digital adopters invested in these technologies respectively). Investment in AI-enabled equipment and apps was much less frequent.

Digital adopters were more advanced than digital non-adopters in the use of traditional ICT technologies, especially wearable devices, and customer relations software. Digital adoption was uneven. Firm size was significant; one in two firms with more than 100 employees were digital adopters compared to around one in three among small enterprises (with less than 50 employees).

Industrial sector also mattered. For instance, around two thirds of employers in Public Administration and Information and Communication had invested in digital technologies, while only 22 per cent of those in Accommodation and Food Service Activities and 30 per cent in Education had invested. Improving efficiency, productivity and product and service quality were the main reasons for investment. Digital technologies were mostly applied in the organisation of production or service delivery, and quality control and monitoring. Non- adopters typically identified their area of business activity, wider business risks and the nature of skills demanded as the key reasons for non-investment.

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To find out more visit: sussexmba.com

To read the AI report visit: digit-research.org Find

Find out more about University of Sussex Business School research sussex.ac.uk/business-school