March 8th, 2024, Lesley Simeon
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tricky subject! Some feel it’s making their life much easier, while others feel it will impact society positively. Some feel it needs to be regulated and some feel brands need to be transparent about how they use it. Love it or hate it, you just cannot ignore it. In this piece, we’re asking consumers how they feel the technology has impacted productivity in their workplace.
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 17 international markets to what extent they feel AI systems like ChatGPT and Bard have improved or hindered overall productivity in their workplace over the last year.
Nearly a third of consumers across markets (32%) feel AI has improved the overall productivity in their workplace while fewer than one in ten (8%) feel it has hindered productivity. More than a quarter of consumers (26%) say that AI has had no impact on their workplace’s productivity and a third (34%) are just not sure about AI’s impact on productivity.
Men are significantly more likely than women are (36% vs. 28%) to believe that AI has improved overall productivity in their workplace in the past one year, YouGov demographic data shows. On the other hand, similar proportions of men (7%) and women (8%) feel AI technology has hindered workplace productivity.
Men have a marginal lead on women in believing that the use of AI has had no impact on workplace productivity (28% vs. 25%).
Moving on to data from each of the individual markets we survey, Indians are the most likely across markets (67%) to say that AI has improved overall productivity in their workplace over the last year. Consumers in Indonesia (65%) and UAE (62%) closely follow those in India, in sharing this opinion. In Europe, consumers in Spain are the most likely to agree (28%).
Right at the bottom of the list of markets whose consumers feel AI has improved productivity are Sweden (14%) and the US (17%). Britons (18%) are also among consumers who are least likely across markets to say that AI has improved workplace productivity. Singaporeans are the least likely in Asia (at 53%, more than half of them are of this opinion, nonetheless) to say the same.
Canadians (12%) and Americans (12%) account for the largest proportion of consumers who say that artificial intelligence has in fact hindered overall productivity in their workplace in the past one year. Equal proportions - one in ten - of consumers in Australia (10%), Spain (10%), Italy (10%) all feel the same.
In Asia, Singaporeans (6%) are the most likely to have a not-so-positive take on AI’s impact on workplace productivity. Consumers in another Asian market we survey - Indonesia - are the least likely across markets (2%) to say AI has hindered overall productivity in their workplace.
As for those who say AI has had no impact on productivity in their workplace, Germans lead (37%), followed by Italians (31%). In Asia, three in ten Hong Kongers (30%) say the same - the most likely in the region to say so. Indonesians (13%) and Indians (14%) are the least likely across markets to say AI has had no impact on their workplace’s productivity.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 501 and 2023 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in December 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.