Axios Live: AI is empowering but isolating employees, workplace leaders say

SAN FRANCISCO — AI adoption in the workplace is largely happening on an individual level, boosting employee productivity and unlocking new levels of inspiration, technology experts say.

Why it matters: The result is faster work production, but it comes at the risk of burnout and inequitable advantages.

Axios' Mady Mills and Meg Morrone moderated the April 6 roundtable, which was sponsored by Cox Business and RapidScale.

By the numbers: The top two use cases for AI spending — coding and copilots — are for individual productivity, Automation Anywhere CMO Tim McDonough said.

• Coursera sees "one enrollment every four seconds in an AI course," said Greg Hart, the company's CEO.
• "91% of the people who take a course on Coursera see a salary increase, [and] most of those people are taking technology-focused courses."

What they're saying: AI lets workers move more efficiently and with more autonomy, but "it's so much busier and more chaotic," Imbue chief technology officer Josh Albrecht said.

• "I'm not sure the incentive structure is there for companies to really ensure that … workers are not completely overwhelmed" by what AI provides, said Vanessa Parli, managing director of programs and external engagement at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
• There is also a "bifurcation of super-elite AI" users and everyone else, said Writer chief people officer Jevan Lenox, with starkly different career outcomes.

Yes, but: Some are finding it invigorating, WordPress VIP chief technology officer Brian Alvey said.

• "There are people who work in tech who are, like, 'I was pretty much going to retire, but now I'm coding again. This is cool. I've got the magic back,'" Alvey said.
• The barriers to adoption are "attitudinal more than it is generational," said Sari Factor, Imagine Learning vice chair and chief strategy officer.

What's next: "What does it mean for AI to act in collaborative contexts?" asks Microsoft chief scientist and technical fellow Jaime Teevan.

• With tools like Asana, Slack, Google Docs and Zoom integrated, "it's truly a teammate that is collaborating across our teams to get work done," Asana chief marketing officer Prachi Gore said.

Content from the sponsor's remarks: "The true power of AI is cross-functional," Cox Business vice president of marketing Sarah Kim said. "AI is going to rewrite roles and work."

• "The education system cannot keep up with the rate of change," and the question facing people entering the workforce now is not "what are the jobs?" She added. It's "What are the skills?"