Research from UiPath finds that employees in the country have the greatest trust in the technology’s outputs throughout the APAC region.
By Maggie Mancini
UiPath has published its annual Global Knowledge Worker Survey that uncovers how employees are using generative AI (GenAI), the shortcomings and risks of the technology, and the opportunity to combine GenAI with business automation. The report reveals that employees who use these tools are saving more time in their workdays. However, those using both GenAI and business automation together achieve substantially more significant benefits.
While GenAI promises to revolutionise operations across industries, there is a lack of enterprise direction and training on the technology, leading to mistrust across global workforces. Currently, less than half (45%) of workers have been offered training or guidelines on how to use GenAI. Similarly, only 44% of employees think that GenAI has the context needed from their business’s data to support processes and drive value—though this number increases to 85% when employees use both GenAI and business automation.
Approximately 42% of workers who have implemented GenAI have saved 10 or more hours each week. By freeing up time in their days, almost half (48%) of workers have been able to focus on more creative tasks. Regionally, workers in Singapore and Hong Kong have seen the greatest time-saving benefits from implementing GenAI tools.
When asked if employees have experienced any benefits from using GenAI and business automation software, respondents said greater productivity (43%), more accurate work (39%), and improved work-life balance (38%). When workers use the technologies together, 55% saved 10 or more hours at work per week, compared to 31% of those who use only GenAI and 33% of those who use only business automation.
Less than half (48%) of respondents indicate that they trust the outputs they get from GenAI tools. Regionally, Japan (26%) trusts GenAI’s outputs the least, while Singapore (67%), South Korea (63%), and Hong Kong (62%) have the greatest trust in GenAI’s outputs.
The most common types of tasks employees use GenAI for include drafting communications (38%), brainstorming (34%), and summarising long-form content (30%).
