The majority of business leaders have not achieved their top AI goals

Is AI actually helping organizations?

The jury’s still out. Only 23% of leaders believe their workforce is “fully ready for AI,” according to a recent report from IT infrastructure services firm Kendryl, down from 29% last year.

“We see some of the confidence dropping in the readiness of organizations to face the challenge,” Mark Paulek, Kendryl’s CHRO, told HR Brew. “I think that’s really more of a matter of them getting closer to the mountain and seeing how high it is.”

What’s more, just 32% of leaders said they’ve accomplished “one of their top two AI goals”; 11% have achieved both.

HR pros can help their organizations make the most of AI by thinking of employees as “business athletes,” who require training to build skills and feedback to grow, Paulek said.

“If [employees] think of [their] role as applying curiosity, working with empathy, trying to solve our customers’ toughest problems, whether they’re internal customers or whether external-facing customers, [they’re] working on the right thing,” he said. “What that will lead [employees] to are new and better ways of working.”

Mending AI disconnect. HR pros also need to focus on top performers amid AI transformation, because they’re often leading the implementation and oversight of these tools, Carolee Gearhart, chief revenue officer at Wellhub, previously told HR Brew.

“Those top folks are getting asked to do more. In many cases, they’re getting asked to support other people in building the skills within the team,” Gearhart said. “It’s probably at [HR’s] peril that they’re not paying attention to who are the folks that have the most desirable skills and that are able to help the rest of the organization in this moment.”

If AI use mandates or requirements aren’t helping companies achieve their AI goals, leaders may need to change their approach to help encourage employees to use the tech, Brad Rencher, BambooHR’s CEO, told HR Brew.

“The top down: ‘Hey, use AI, use AI,’ if that was ever effective, that time has passed,” Rencher said. “Now, it’s about enlisting people in the work…It’s time for us to redesign the work…How do we change the factory to bring the humans in, but to change how the work gets done?”