2024 is year AI at work gets real: Microsoft, LinkedIn joint report

IT giants Microsoft Corp and LinkedIn Wednesday released the 2024 Work Trend Index, a joint report on the state of AI at work titled, "AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part".

Wednesday May 8, 2024 6:28 PM, ummid.com News Network

Microsoft, LinkedIn release joint report on state of AI at work

Redmond (Washington): IT giants Microsoft Corp and LinkedIn Wednesday released the 2024 Work Trend Index, a joint report on the state of AI at work titled, "AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part".

The research — based on a survey of 31,000 people across 31 countries, labor and hiring trends on LinkedIn, trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, and research with Fortune 500 customers, shows how, in just one year, AI is influencing the way people work, lead and hire around the world.

"2024 is the year AI at work gets real. Use of generative AI at work has nearly doubled in the past six months. LinkedIn is seeing a significant increase in professionals adding AI skills to their profiles, and most leaders say they wouldn't hire someone without AI skills", the report said.

"But with many leaders worried their company lacks an AI vision, and employees bringing their own AI tools to work, leaders have reached the hard part of any tech disruption: moving from experimentation to tangible business impact", the report said.

"Opportunity for every organization"

Commenting on the findings of the report, Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO Microsoft, said AI provides opportunity for every organization.

"AI is democratizing expertise across the workforce. Our latest research highlights the opportunity for every organization to apply this technology to drive better decision-making, collaboration — and ultimately business outcomes", he said.

Commetning on the report, Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn, pointed out how AI is redefining work.

"AI is redefining work, and it's clear we need new playbooks. It's the leaders who build for agility instead of stability and invest in skill building internally that will give their organizations a competitive advantage and create more efficient, engaged and equitable teams", he said.

The report highlights three insights every leader and professional needs to know about AI's impact on work and the labor market in the year ahead - 1. Employees want AI at work — and won't wait for companies to catch up, 2. For employees, AI raises the bar and breaks the career ceiling and 3. The rise of the AI power user — and what they reveal about the future.

Free learning courses on AI

Microsoft also announced new capabilities in Copilot for Microsoft 365, and LinkedIn made free more than 50 learning courses for LinkedIn Premium subscribers designed to empower professionals at all levels to advance their AI aptitude.

LinkedIn is also providing AI tools to enable you to stay ahead in your career.

"LinkedIn Learning offers more than 22,000 courses, including more than 600 AI courses, to build aptitude in generative AI, empower your teams to make GAI-powered business investments, or simply to keep your skills sharp. This includes over 50 new AI learning courses to empower professionals at all skill levels. New courses are free and available for everyone to use through July 8.

"Additionally, our new AI-Powered Coaching in LinkedIn Learning helps learners find the content they need to grow their skills faster, with greater personalization and guided conversational learning", LinkedIn said.

"For LinkedIn Premium subscribers, AI-powered personalized takeaways on LinkedIn Feed on posts, articles or videos (from the article to the commentary) can also help you daily in your career with personalized, relevant insights and opportunities including ideas and actions you can take", it said.

"And if you're looking to change your job, we're also making it easier and faster to find your ideal job. With new AI-powered tools, you can now assess your fit for a role in seconds based on your experience and skills, get advice on how to stand out, and subscribers will also see nudges, for example suggestions for skills to build, professionals in your network to reach out to, and more. So far, more than 90% of subscribers who have access shared it's been helpful in job search", the company said.

Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft also announced Copilot for Microsoft 365 innovations to help people get started with AI.

"A new auto-complete feature is coming to the prompt box. Copilot will now help people who have the start of a prompt by offering to complete it, suggesting a more detailed prompt based on what is being typed, to deliver a stronger result.

"When people know what they want, but don't have the right words, the new rewrite feature in Copilot will turn a basic prompt into a rich one with the click of a button.

"Catch Up is a new chat interface that surfaces personal insights based on recent activity and provides responsive recommendations. For example, Copilot will flag an upcoming meeting and provide relevant information to help participants prepare.

"And new capabilities in Copilot Lab will enable people to create, publish and manage prompts tailored to them, and to their specific team, role and function", Microsoft said.

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