Deloitte’s State of GenAI in the Enterprise survey reveals how organizations with advanced GenAI expertise are prioritizing trust-building and reshaping talent strategies.
Many leaders are beginning to make the potential of generative AI a reality. Deloitte’s quarterly State of GenAI in the Enterprise survey, which connected with nearly 2,000 director to C-suite level respondents, aims to explore the current landscape of GenAI adoption. The survey shows that organizations reporting “high” or “very high” GenAI expertise are quickly moving beyond initial curiosity and starting to implement the technology across their workforces.
As organizations progress on their GenAI journeys, they’ll need to focus on creating tangible benefits to scale up deployments beyond pilots and proofs of concept. This requires addressing two critical challenges: building trust among workers and helping team members evolve their skills.
Proving the Value of GenAI
Organizations are increasingly emphasizing the need for their GenAI initiatives and investments to deliver clear value. While financial return on investment (ROI) is important, innovation, strategic positioning, and competitive differentiation can often be even more significant.
Forward-thinking organizations are implementing GenAI without specific ROI targets, understanding they can’t afford to fall behind in this rapidly evolving market. Although many organizations are still focused on tactical benefits like increased efficiency and productivity, experts see the greatest advantage in strategic and growth-related areas such as improving products and services and fostering innovation.
For instance, 70% of organizations with high or very high GenAI expertise reported improving existing products and services, and 63% stated that they encouraged innovation and growth. Such organizations are scaling up more aggressively, providing a larger base for generating benefits.
Scaling Up GenAI
Scaling up GenAI can convert potential benefits into real-world value, but it also brings challenges. Scaling any initiative requires cooperation across teams spanning strategy, operations, HR, and IT. In the era of GenAI, issues like risk management, governance, workforce transformation, and trust take on greater importance.
Nearly half of survey respondents (46%) provide approved GenAI access to just a small portion of their workforce (20% or less). However, GenAI experts are further along, with nearly half (48%) providing access to at least 40% of their workforce.
Some leaders are adopting horizontal scaling, placing GenAI into the hands of as many people as possible. Broad but controlled access can ultimately drive innovation across the business and help create realistic expectations among the workforce, supporting adoption.
Building Trust
Lack of trust continues to be one of the biggest barriers to large-scale GenAI adoption. Although 72% of respondents agreed that their organization’s trust in GenAI has increased over the last two years, addressing trust will become crucial as organizations transition from experimentation to large-scale deployment.
Fewer than half of respondents (40 to 45%) are, to a “large” or “very large” extent, implementing processes to improve trust through aspects like data quality, output reliability, and organizational empathy. However, among organizations with “very high” GenAI expertise, trust-building efforts are much higher (59-73%).
Evolving the Workforce
Three-quarters of respondents (75%) expect to change their talent strategies within two years in response to advancements in GenAI. Organizations with “very high” GenAI expertise are moving even faster, with 32% already making changes.
In today’s highly competitive market for AI talent, organizations are not only aggressively pursuing new talent but also training their broader workforce on GenAI. To succeed, organizations will need to move beyond simple GenAI fluency, creating new roles, processes, and an organizational culture that actively develops junior talent into senior leaders who can harness GenAI to its full advantage.
Moving Ahead or Falling Behind
Organizations with leaders who possess high GenAI expertise are moving past the infatuation stage and leading the way in proving the value of GenAI. These organizations are emphasizing strategic growth areas like improving products and services and fostering innovation. Other organizations are moving more slowly, risking falling behind or missing opportunities.
Scaling requires coordinated effort across strategy, process, people, data, and technology. Building trust and evolving the workforce are critical challenges that organizations need to address to successfully deploy GenAI at scale. Ultimately, organizations with very high GenAI expertise are more focused on building trust and changing their talent strategies to succeed in this competitive market.
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