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According to a recent survey, more than three-quarters (77%) of respondents believe that AI will have a major or transformative impact on their work over the next five years.

Thomson Reuters 2and yearly Report “Future of skilled workers” shows that the thousands of professionals surveyed clearly see the rise of AI as the dominant theme that they believe is driving change in their respective professions. The report is based on a survey of more than 2,200 respondents from legal, tax, trading, accounting, and risk, fraud and compliance, as well as individual companies, corporate functions, and government agencies around the world. All have different and similar perspectives on AI.

The report comes at a time when professional work itself is undergoing massive changes: companies are looking for ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and professionals themselves are striving for a better work-life balance.

What government experts want from the use of AI

Government professionals surveyed – from legal, law enforcement and risk management roles in government agencies or government functions in corporations – shared that while they, like their counterparts in other professions, feel that AI will have a greater impact on their work over the next five years, their views on AI and its use in their profession are also changing.

For example, while government employees have the lowest average weekly working hours of all groups surveyed at 44 hours (compared to the overall average of 46), more than half (51%) said they do not have enough time to accomplish everything they would like to do in their role. Interestingly, government employees viewed the use of AI as less impactful than their peers. They expect that the the least The amount of free time next year is 2 hours per week due to increased AI use in the workplace. The overall average was twice as high, with the average professional saying they expect to have 4 hours of free time per week next year due to increased AI use.

When asked how they would like to use the freed-up time, respondents in government functions said they would like to have time for core tasks and long-term projects, as well as for research and workload management. In a sense, they wanted to replace the freed-up time with more time for the work they currently do not have time for.

And there may be a strategic reason for that. According to the report, AI ranks well outside of government officials’ top five strategic priorities as they continue to focus more on talent. In fact, more than half of government officials (54%) considered talent to be their highest priority over the next 18 months. And that priority was the only one in the top five that increased in importance in government officials’ eyes compared to last year.

The report attributed this phenomenon to what it called the “departmental control zone,” a situation in which decisions about technology are made central with individual government officials or their organizations having little opportunity to experiment.

Changing the cautious perception within government work

However, because of this, government professionals’ views on AI were significantly more cautious, particularly regarding AI development in their workplaces, predicting much slower adoption and use. When questioned more closely, around 20% of respondents from government agencies said they believe AI adoption in their team is being held back by internal issues such as organizational readiness for change and risk, the complexity of ensuring data quality, and (not surprisingly) budget constraints.

Overall, this has led to the perception that AI will have a smaller impact at the organizational level for government employees, at least compared to their counterparts in companies and firms, the report said, although the Technology can be a missing ingredient to improve the professional work of the government.

But this attitude is not irreversible. In fact, it could provide an opportunity for government organizations to change their professionals’ views on AI-driven efficiency and technical solutions by leveraging solutions already available that could significantly reduce their workload. For example, an AI-powered search solution such as Thomson Reuters CLEARcould show overwhelmed law enforcement teams ways to more quickly identify persons of interest during investigations. Or AI-powered tools for managing court cases – such as Thomson Reuters Case Center for Courts – could go a long way toward improving the readiness of many state and local public law offices.

Even if it While it is natural that government employees tend to be more cautious than their corporate or corporate counterparts, the perspectives presented in the report should serve as a wake-up call for greater investment in the technology and talent that government organizations need to continue to best serve and protect the public.

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