81% Of Companies Have Generative AI Teams: Smaller Enterprises Lead

81% of enterprise companies have established an internal generative AI team with at least 10 members, according to a new study of 672 executives at companies with annual revenues over $50 million by Wharton professor Stefano Puntoni and consultancy GBK Collective. The results show that generative AI is not another crypto or web3 hype cycle flash in the pan, Puntoni says.

“This isn’t another metaverse,” he said in a statement. “Enterprise decision makers across industries are adopting generative AI in droves and the wave is only going to grow, with spending set to surge by more than 25% in the next 12 months.”

Smaller companies are leading the charge while larger enterprises lag behind, however. Executives at companies with $50-200 million in revenue personally use generative AI frequently, with 57% reporting using it weekly. Executives at larger organizations, however, distrust the technology, mainly due to accuracy concerns.

Additional findings:

• Generative AI funding will increase 25% this year
• 75% of executives feel positive about the future of generative AI
• 58% of executives use generative AI regularly
• 55% say it will increase work quality
• 36% expect generative Ai to replace employee skills for some tasks

As you’d expect, the technology space uses generative AI the most, while just 26% of leaders in retail and 36% in Professional Services use the new generative AI tools regularly.

The most popular uses of generative AI in work over the next three to five years, according to the survey respondents, are:

1. Data analysis: 89%
2. Marketing content creation: 87%
3. Researching customer and competitive insights: 84%
4. Document editing and summarization: 84%
5. Customer support and internal help desk: 82%
6. Automated email generation: 82%
7. Supply chain management: 71%
8. Legal contracts: 57%
9. Recruitment: 67%

A big concern among many: will humans be replaced as generative AI gets better and better?

“I’m hoping that instead of human replacement, we’ll see human flourishing,” Puntoni told me in a TechFirst podcast focused on the study. “Instead of feeling useless, you’ll feel empowered, you’ll feel inspired and you’ll feel able to actually do what you do best rather than feeling that you’re no longer needed.”

However, he says, workers and executives have to pay attention. Repurposing an ancient quote by Pericles along the lines of “just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you,” Puntoni said people cannot afford not to care about this, because it will impact everyone.

Generative AI will expand what’s possible for individuals, GBK Collective president Jeremy Korst says. Not only will it enable people who perhaps aren’t the best writers to write well, or allow people who aren’t software engineers to build things in code, it will change our focus at work.

“We are really allowing humans to do more of the human aspect of the job, whether it’s connecting with other people, connecting with customers, connecting with others in the organization versus doing the more routine work that perhaps we can all outsource to this helpful agent.”