HR leaders report meaningful business gains from AI

Compared to IT leaders, HR practitioners were found to be 2.3 times more likely to report meaningful business gains from AI use, according to a report.

For its report, AI Collaboration Index: Executive Insights, Atlassian surveyed 180 Fortune 1000 executives and 12,000 knowledge workers to explore how teams collaborated with AI.

Use strategies

Atlassian’s findings revealed that non-technical leaders reported more AI-driven gains, as marketing and human resource leaders were 2.3 times more likely than information technology leaders to report meaningful business gains. These respondents said this was thanks to AI’s ability to solve technical problems without the need for deep expertise.

Additionally, its data showed that one in two (50 per cent) HR leaders said their HR employees reported significant benefits from working with AI, while only 11 per cent of technology leaders, and 5 per cent of marketing leaders said the same. Interestingly, the data showed that HR managers had greater optimism (52 per cent) surrounding AI-led transformation compared with their team members (41 per cent).

HR leaders and teams reported that AI worked well for career development and internal mobility; however, one in four teams reported using AI for these purposes, with leaders reporting that AI use for candidate sourcing and screening was “falling flat”. As a solution, the report pointed to incentivising AI use. “When executives’ performance and pay [are] tied to AI adoption, company-wide uptake doubles,” it found. Despite this benefit, only one in 10 organisations reported that they took advantage of an AI-incentive system.

The future of work

Seventy-five per cent of HR practitioners said that AI’s disconnect from the “right data and information” held them back, the report found. Further, it found that HR practitioners wanted to develop various skills in the next year, including the ability to know how to use different AI tools (49 per cent), evaluate AI output for accuracy and bias (47 per cent), and write clear AI prompts (46 per cent). Concerningly, 50 per cent of HR practitioners reported that roles and the necessary skills required in their industry will be impacted by AI in the next year.

Atlassian chief people officer Avani Prabhakar said that human collaboration with AI is the “future of work” and that preparing for this future requires cultural and technological transformation. Compared to last year, the report found that this year, daily AI usage has nearly doubled, the proportion of people who believed that AI was “useless” dropped by 78 per cent, and the share of people who saw AI as a strategic partner increased by 27 per cent.

Atlassian also found that this year, more knowledge workers (74 per cent) said their leaders “fostered a safe environment for AI experimentation”, compared to last year (60 per cent).

One respondent said: “At this moment, AI doesn’t help collaboration between teams. That’s a big pain point. How can it actually make teams work better together?”

Despite the report unveiling that knowledge workers believed that AI made them 33 per cent more productive, saved them 1.3 hours a day, and that executives reported improved personal efficiency, 96 per cent of leaders said that AI has not delivered a meaningful return on investment.

Another respondent said: “It’s time to move forward, otherwise we’ll be left behind. For too long, our company prioritised caution over speed.”

Atlassian’s data revealed that companies that pushed for AI adoption and experimentation rather than perfecting their strategy were two times more likely to report significant innovation gains. Prabhakar stressed that HR has a significant opportunity to lead a shift in the world where teams and AI work hand in hand.

“It’s about unlocking the best of both, together,” she said.