AI promises to unleash creativity and productivity by lifting the weight of work

The pace of work is outpacing human’s ability to keep up, impacting innovation and strategic thinking, according to a new study by Microsoft. The findings from the 2023 Australian Work Trend Index report: “Will AI fix Work?” revealed 68% of Australian workers struggle to have enough time and energy to get their work done, while two-thirds of Australian leaders say they are concerned about a lack of innovation or breakthrough ideas.

“In a world where creativity is the new productivity, the amount of time we spend in meetings, managing emails, and chats is more than just an inconvenience. It significantly impacts the results of businesses,” said Jane Mackarell, Microsoft ANZ’s Modern Work and Surface Business Group Director.

“There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help lift the weight of work and not only empower employees with greater productivity but bring them back to what I call ‘the soul of work’ – work that is more fulfilling, creative, and impactful. When we free the mind, we give ourselves the space to think strategically, and as a result, feel more fulfilled in our work.”

The report shares three key insights for business leaders as they look to understand and responsibly adopt AI for their organisation:

1. Digital debt is costing us innovation: Over half of Australians (57%) have struggled with finding time and energy to get their work done, and those workers are 3.4 times more likely to say they struggle with innovation, with two-thirds of business leaders expressing their concerns around this.

2. An unexpected AI-employee alliance emerges: While 46% of Australian workers say they’re worried AI will end up replacing their jobs, 2 in 3 people are comfortable using AI to support their role. Additionally, 64% of Australians said they would delegate as much work to AI as possible to lessen their workloads, suggesting they are optimistic about the role of AI in the workplace. Business leaders also indicated AI would be of value to the workplace, helping to boost productivity rather than cutting headcount (in fact that was ranked last).

3. Work will demand a new AI aptitude: Findings revealed employees feel they need to be educated with new core competencies in AI, saying they currently don’t have the right capabilities to get their work done (56%). Leaders throughout Australia (85%) say employees they hire will need new skills to be prepared for the growth of AI.

“It’s fascinating to see that while there is still fear around AI potentially eliminating jobs, people are actually more excited about AI rescuing them from burnout,” said Mackarell.

Other findings of the global report show:

• Communication takes up to 57% of employees’ time, while creation represents the other 43%.

• The top three skills for the Era of AI are: analytical judgement (30%), flexibility (29%) and emotional intelligence (27%).

• Asked to imagine work in 2030, people say the most valuable changes are those that save them time producing high-quality work and learning new skills.

• Managers expect that the three most valuable benefits generated by AI are: increased productivity (31%), helping employees with repetitive/mundane tasks (29%) and increased employee wellbeing (26%).

• The three least valued benefits were removing the coordination challenges of hybrid work (20%), increasing inclusivity (18%), and reducing headcounts (16%)

To empower businesses in the AI era, Microsoft is also introducing the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program with an initial wave of 600 enterprise customers worldwide in an invitation-only paid preview program. In addition, new capabilities will be added to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Viva.

“Next-generation AI will lift the weight of work, and organisations that move first to embrace it will increase creativity and productivity for everyone. Microsoft 365 Copilot was launched earlier this year, bringing powerful new generative AI capabilities to apps people use every day like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams and more,” said Jane.

The 2023 report derived results from an external study of 31,000 people in 31 countries, including 1,000 Australians across multiple industries. The report unearthed key insights business leaders should consider as they look to understand and responsibly adopt AI for their organisation.

Microsoft Work Trends Index report 2023 – Australian insights

1. Digital debt is costing us innovation:

1. 57% of Australian workers say they’ve struggled with having enough time and energy to get their work done

2. They are 3.4x more likely to say they struggled with innovation and strategic thinking

3. Nearly 2 in 3 Australian leaders (60%) say they’re concerned about lack of innovation

4. 68% of Australian workers agree that they don’t have enough uninterrupted focus during their workday

5. Only 28% of Australian workers say they would be missed by colleagues in a majority of their meetings if they couldn’t join.

2. There’s a new AI-employee alliance:

1. While 46% of Australian workers say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, even more – 64%- would delegate as much work as possible to AI in order to lessen their workloads.

2. More than 2 in 3 Australian workers would be comfortable using AI not just for administrative tasks (71%), but also analytical work (75%) and even creative aspects of their role (66%)

3. Business leaders in Australia are 2.2 times more likely to say that AI would provide value in the workplace by boosting productivity rather than cutting headcount.

3. Work will demand a new AI aptitude:

• 85% of leaders in Australia say employees they hire will need new skills to be prepared for the growth of AI.

• 56% of Australian workers say they don’t currently have the right capabilities to get their work done.

Microsoft Copilot

• Copilot in Whiteboard will make Microsoft Teams meetings and brainstorms more creative and effective. Using natural language, you can ask Copilot to generate ideas, organize ideas into themes, create designs that bring ideas to life, and summarize Whiteboard content.

• By integrating DALL-E, OpenAI’s image generator, into Copilot in PowerPoint, users will be able to ask Copilot to create custom images to support their content.

• Copilot in Outlook will offer coaching tips and suggestions on clarity, sentiment and tone to help users write more effective emails and communicate more confidently.

• Copilot in OneNote will use prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information to help customers find what they need easily.

• Copilot in Viva Learning will use a natural language chat interface to help users create a personalized learning journey including designing upskilling paths, discovering relevant learning resources and scheduling time for assigned trainings.

To help every customer get AI-ready, Microsoft is also introducing the Semantic Index for Copilot, a new capability starting to roll out to all Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 customers. To learn more, visit the Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft 365 Blog and the new Work Trend Index.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Andrea Acton, Senior Communications Manager, Microsoft Australia

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 0429 460 327

Christine Galasinao, Herd MSL

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 0429 460 327