ZEW Study: ChatGPT & Co. to Become Part of Daily Work Life
ResearchOver 50 per Cent Want to Use AI Language Models in the Future
Chatbots based on artificial intelligence (AI) are already gaining widespread traction for business use in various companies. This is the result of a representative survey conducted by ZEW Mannheim among approximately 1,500 firms.
“About 45 per cent of firms in the information economy report that at least some of their staff currently employ AI language models in their work. In the manufacturing industry, this figure stands at 28 per cent. Hence, ChatGPT and similar models are becoming integral to daily workflows in many firms. In addition, firms anticipate a significant surge in the use of generative AI in the workplace over the next two years,” comments Dr. Daniel Erdsiek, a researcher in ZEW’s “Digital Economy” Unit, on the results.
More than half of firms anticipate future use of AI chatbots
Looking ahead, 55 per cent of firms in the manufacturing industry expect to implement AI chatbots in the next two years. In the information economy, comprising the ICT sector, media service providers, and knowledge-intensive services, this figure is as high as 71 per cent. Not only is the number of firms expecting to use AI increasing, but there is also an anticipation that a growing number of employees will be working with generative AI. Nearly 40 per cent of firms in the information economy expect that by September 2025, more than a fifth of their workforce will be using ChatGPT or similar models for business purposes.
Employee usage of ChatGPT set to multiply
“On average, firms in the information economy estimate that currently nine per cent of their employees use generative AI language models for work,” explains Erdsiek. “For the next two years, firms anticipate a threefold increase, reaching an average employee share of 27 per cent.”
In the ICT sector, firms even expect that almost a third of their employees will use generative AI for business purposes. The expected employee share using ChatGPT in the manufacturing industry is also set to rise significantly, albeit starting from a lower base. In mechanical engineering and the chemical/pharmaceutical industries, firms anticipate that, on average, 16 per cent of their staff will be using AI-based language models by September 2025.
