Good morning!
2023 has been a big year for AI. 2024 will be even bigger, and HR leaders are preparing for it.
Of the 220 HR executives surveyed by Accenture last month, 97% intend to increase their technology spend in 2024, a 7% increase from 2023. Data and AI are the highest priority tech investments, with 79% of CHROs planning to invest in these areas next year, a 10% jump from this year.
HR leaders are generally optimistic about AI. The majority of respondents say the technology will enhance productivity by automating routine tasks, enable increased focus on creative and innovative tasks, and improve job satisfaction by, again, reducing time spent on mundane tasks. About half say it will allow employees to engage in more meaningful work.
All surveyed CHROs report already implementing some form of generative AI training in their organization. Seventy-four percent say they provide training on effectively using generative AI, and 56% plan to offer academic partnerships that provide AI skills training next year.
Accenture is one of them. The professional services firm recently announced a three-year, $3 billion investment in AI that will double its AI talent to 80,000. For Allison Horn, Accenture’s talent transformation lead, the company's survey results provide a sigh of relief that her peers are also investing in the novel technology.
“It's reassuring. This is game-changing in a really good, positive, energy-producing way,” she says. “Generative AI is really going to get rid of some of the mundane work and get us to the parts of work that we all enjoy more.”
Interestingly, though, the top AI investment priority for HR leaders isn't in their function. Rather, it's in customer service (56%), followed by HR (45%), and finance (44%). That differs from CEOs' AI investment priorities. Of the 429 CEOs polled, the top use cases for generative AI are in the supply chain, manufacturing, and customer service, while HR is the lowest priority.
It may surprise some that HR isn’t a top focus for chief executives or even their people ops leaders, but both functions agree that customer service is an area that will see quicker ROI in improving job quality.
“When you see something like what generative AI can produce for things like customer service and call centers, it's an obvious value case,” says Horn. “And it's also one that usually has scale...If you're talking about something like call centers, [that’s] hundreds or thousands of people. So you can start to see this value very quickly.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
