Microsoft Hong Kong suggests business leaders prepare their data estate and equip their employees with the skills to be AI-ready
- 88% of leaders in Hong Kong recognize the need for new skills among employees they hire to prepare for the growth of AI, underscoring the urgency of developing an ‘AI Mindset’.
- AI presents an opportunity to create a whole new way of working, as 83% of workers in Hong Kong say they would delegate as much work as possible to AI.
May 17, 2023, Hong Kong — Microsoft Corp. has released new data and insights from its 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report: Will AI Fix Work? The research follows the introduction earlier this year of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which brings powerful new generative AI capabilities to workplace productivity tools with the goal of augmenting creativity and raising productivity and skills.
The 2023 Work Trend Index surveyed 31,000 people across industries in 31 countries and markets including Hong Kong, as well as trillions of signals from emails, meetings and chats across Microsoft 365, and labor trends on LinkedIn. The data shows that the pace of work has accelerated faster than humans can keep up, and it is impacting innovation. Next-generation AI has the potential to lift the weight of work. Organizations that move first to embrace AI will break the cycle — increasing creativity and productivity for everyone.
“AI is set to revolutionize the way we work as it moves from autopilot to copilot, freeing us from digital debt and fuelling innovation,” said Cally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong and Macau.
“As work evolves with AI, so must we. Business leaders and employees across Hong Kong are optimistic about AI, as our Work Trend Index research suggests that most people would delegate as much as possible to AI to lessen their workloads. It is imperative for business leaders to understand how to leverage AI with a mindset of continuous experimentation to remove the drudgery of work, unleash creativity, and build AI aptitude. As a first step to embrace AI, we encourage organizations to migrate to a more integrated and secured enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure. With new ways of working, we hope every organization can do more with less.”
The report shares three key insights for business leaders as they look to understand and responsibly adopt AI for their organization:
1. Digital debt is costing us innovation: We all carry digital debt. The volume of data, emails and chats has outpaced our ability to process it all. 76% of people in Hong Kong say they don’t have enough time and energy to get their work done, and those people are more likely to say they struggled with being innovative. Of the time spent on Microsoft 365, the average person spends 57% communicating and only 43% creating. And the #1 productivity disruption is inefficient meetings.
2. There is a new AI-employee alliance: While 69% of respondents in Hong Kong say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, even more – 83% – would assign as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads. In Hong Kong, four in five people would be comfortable using AI not just for administrative tasks but also for analytical work and creative aspects of their role. Business leaders are 1.4x more likely to say that AI would be most valuable in their workplace by boosting productivity rather than cutting headcount.
3. Every employee needs AI aptitude: Every employee, not just AI experts, will need new core competencies such as prompt engineering in their day-to-day work. 88% of leaders in Hong Kong anticipate that employees will need new skills in the AI era. And 80% of people in Hong Kong say that they currently lack the right capabilities to get their work done.
Get ready for AI to enjoy the first-mover advantages
“While AI will power a whole new way of working for everyone, business leaders should understand how these emerging technologies will fundamentally change the nature of work and improve efficiency to drive productivity”, said Maria Hui, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Hong Kong, “As AI technology continues to develop, upskilling will become increasingly important to stay competitive. Both business leaders and employees should take advantage of these opportunities and adapt to the new way of work.”
1. Invest in people and get mindset ready: Cultivating a growth mindset culture within an organization is the key to transformation, engagement and innovation. This requires a concerted effort for both leadership and employees to encourage experimentation and learning from failures, valuating collaboration and continuous learning over individual knowledge.
2. Grow AI literacy and skills across your organization: Employees need to have a basic understanding of Cloud and AI concepts and how we apply AI to solve business problems and use it responsibly. Microsoft has a set of core principles of “Responsible AI” to guide our AI work and offers Microsoft’s AI Business School for business leaders to learn about AI strategy, culture and responsibility.
3. Get your data estate ready with enterprise-grade infrastructure: Companies need to have a trusted and secure infrastructure in place for data security and privacy protection, including data encryption, access controls, and monitoring.
4. Build intelligent app experiences with AI: Companies can start small by adding simple AI features to your existing apps and gradually build up your capabilities over time.
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About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
