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Slack: There Are Five Types of AI Users
The company’s framing of AI personas offers a roadmap for nudging workers along to where managers want them to go in using new technologies.
3 Min Read
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A research team at Slack has surveyed 5,000 full-time desk workers to see what motivates them to use AI-enhanced workplace tools and concluded that people fall into one of five different "personas," per the Slack Workforce Lab below:
The Maximalist (30%): Maximalists are using AI multiple times a week to improve their work and are shouting from the rooftops about it.
The Underground (20%): Undergrounds are Maximalists in disguise, using AI often but hesitant to share with their colleagues that they are doing so.
The Rebel (19%): Rebels don’t subscribe to the AI hype. They avoid using AI and consider it unfair when coworkers engage with these tools.
The Superfan (16%): Superfans are excited and admire the advances made in AI, but aren’t yet making the most use out of it at work.
The Observer (16%): Observers have yet to integrate AI into their work. They are watching with interest and caution.
What's interesting about this approach of identifying AI personas is how nicely it dovetails with the practice of managing people via "employee personas."
For those of you unfamiliar with that idea, workforce platform Envoy describes employee personas as "a set of semi-fictional characters that represent the behaviors, needs, and preferences of a group of employees. Personas are created based on data and interviews with actual employees." These personas can then be used to tailor internal communications, plan how to deploy training resources across an organization or develop career paths. In other words, it's a workforce management tool based on some degree of data analysis.
Slack is taking that framework and applying it to AI adoption strategies. Per a news report in HR Dive:
“It’s very complicated,” Christina Janzer, SVP of research and analytics at Slack, said during a press call. “People are not experiencing AI in the same way,” she said, adding that individuals’ emotions toward AI may help employers predict which behaviors those employees may adopt toward the tool, be it experimentation or avoidance.
Some of you may remember the work that the Slack-backed Future Forum did in workplace research, where it surveyed 10,000 workers across the globe every quarter and shared findings on flexibility, burnout, hybrid work and managerial priorities. Slack's Workforce Lab has a slightly different scope -- "We conduct research with desk workers around the globe and experiment with ways to drive productivity and boost the employee experience for workers at Slack, Salesforce, and everywhere."
The release of this research report on AI persona -- complete with a fun quiz to take -- seems to pick up the baton the Future Forum was carrying by asking how management and workplace tools can frame the best adoption and rollout strategies for new workplace tools and platforms.
It's important to remember that personas aren't permanent -- people's judgment and enthusiasm levels change over time and with experience. The key is to find the right way to motivate people into having those perspective-changing experiences. If we were to assume Slack's research reflects a broader sentiment around AI in the workplace, only a third of our colleagues are really hyped about using AI -- everyone else has their reasons for keeping quiet on their AI use or staying away. One hopes Slack Workforce Lab's next project digs into why three out of five personas aren't using AI, and what could make them start.
Note: HR Dive is part of Industry Dive, which shares a parent company with No Jitter.
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