2 December, 2024
Gen AI is becoming embedded in the daily lives of Australians faster than smartphones, our new AI sentiment survey reveals.
The survey of over 6,000 everyday Australians across all age groups shows 61% using AI to boost productivity and rescue themselves from drudgery. This is despite strong reservations about AI’s reliability, its impact on jobs, and who is in control of it.
“What people say about AI and what people do are completely different, 67% say they don’t trust it but it’s clearly operating as a defibrillator for productivity, and this is fairly consistent regardless of age.”
Emma BrometMantel Group data and AI leader
This strong signal from Australians ready to get on board with AI is a golden opportunity to improve service levels and drive efficiency for business and government agencies.
“There is a clear competitive advantage for organisations who understand and prioritise AI”
Emma BrometMantel Group data and AI leader
Smart homes, content creation, and customer service are the areas people feel most comfortable with AI replacing tasks typically performed by humans. However, survey respondents also expressed a level of comfort with AI replacing humans in the provision of government services (11%), autonomous driving (11%), healthcare (9%) and education (8%).
AI is clearly unfettered by the conventional five to ten-fold return on investment constraints applied to other technology programs, the survey shows.
“Businesses know they've just got to innovate in this area to win, they don't necessarily care about the profit that AI derives. A 5x-10x payback is absolutely achievable if organisations pick the right AI use-cases, however most survey respondents are happy for AI investments to break even and 14% say ROI is totally irrelevant.”
Emma BrometMantel Group data and AI leader
The survey also exposes holes in risk management and governance with two-thirds of survey respondents saying their organisation doesn’t have an AI policy.
“The lack of guardrails overlaid with the steep adoption curve is concerning, particularly when organisational leadership in relation to AI is weak. People’s trust is low, so the obligation to manage AI risks deftly is higher, but only a fifth of boards and executive leadership teams are rated as having a strong understanding and ability to make proficient decisions about AI.”
Emma BrometMantel Group data and AI leader
