Managers Use AI More, Like It Less

Managers at large U.S. companies are using AI more often and feeling less excited about it, according to new survey data from Wharton Human-AI Research and GBK Collective. The researchers said this was the first time in their four-year study that usage and excitement moved in opposite directions.

“The amazement is kind of wearing off a little bit,” Prasanna Tambe, Wharton professor

Key findings among managers and above:

• 62% use AI daily, up from 46% last year
• 51% describe themselves as excited, down eight points
• 44% call themselves cautious and 25% skeptical
• 59% remain optimistic, unchanged from last year
• 80% report positive financial returns, but only 28% call them strongly positive

The job is shifting from producing work to checking it. Seventy-two percent of managers said their focus has moved from creating outputs to managing AI-generated ones. Accountability is still unsettled. When asked who answers for a consequential error by autonomous AI:

• 28% named a governance or risk team
• 26% named the deploying employee’s manager
• 25% named the employee

Most departments keep a person in the loop. In 48%, AI does the work but a human approves it before it executes. Seventeen percent allow autonomous operation with monitoring.

A third of respondents said their departments had slowed or frozen hiring because of AI. Seventy-eight percent of managers said employees received adequate AI training, compared with 56% of entry- and mid-level employees. Departments that measure AI by growth, such as net-new revenue or sales conversion, reported stronger results than those that tracked efficiency alone.

Full story: Fortune

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