Work Trend Index: How AI will change the Future of Work in India?

The 2023 Work Trend Index polled 31,000 people across industries in 31 countries, including 14 Asia Pacific markets*, as well as billions of signals from Microsoft 365 emails, meetings, and chats, as well as labour trends on LinkedIn.

Work Trend Index: How AI will change the Future of Work in India?

Last week, Microsoft published the conclusions of its flagship Work Trend Index 2023 Report, “Will AI Fix Work?” in India.

“As the nature of work evolves, AI promises to be the biggest transformation to work in our lifetimes,” stated Bhaskar Basu, country leader – Modern Work, Microsoft India. The next generation of AI will unleash a fresh surge of productivity development, freeing us from drudgery and allowing us to rediscover the joy of creation.”

“Every organisation and leader has the opportunity and responsibility to get AI right—testing and experimenting with new ways of working to build a brighter future of work for everyone.” This will necessitate not only investing in AI, but also ensuring that every employee have the AI aptitude required to survive in the new world of work,” Bhaskar Basu remarked.

The research provides three critical lessons for business leaders looking to understand and safely implement AI in their organisation:

Drudgery debt a costing for innovation:

The amount of data, emails, and chats has outstripped our ability to process it all. There is a chance to improve the effectiveness of existing communications. Every minute spent managing digital debt is a minute spent not doing creative work. 76% of Indian workers believe they don’t have enough time or energy to complete their work, and they are 3.1 times more likely to struggle with being innovative. The average Microsoft 365 user spends 57% of their time communicating and only 43% creating. Furthermore, 78% of Indian workers say that they lack uninterrupted focus during their workday. More than three-quarters of Indian executives (84%) are concerned about a lack of innovation. Inefficient meetings are the biggest culprit disturbing productivity, according to 46% of Indian professionals who believe their absence in half or more of their meetings will go undetected by peers.

AI & Employee alliance a Boon to Work:

While 74% of Indian workers are concerned that AI would replace them, an even higher proportion—83%—would assign as much work as possible to AI in order to reduce their workloads. More than three-quarters of Indian workers would be comfortable employing AI not only for administrative activities (86%) but also for analytical work (88%), and even creative aspects of their job (87%). 100% of Indian creative workers who are well-versed in AI would be at ease employing AI for creative parts of their employment. Meanwhile, Indian managers are 1.6 times more likely to believe that AI would add value to the workplace by increasing productivity rather than reducing personnel.

AI aptitude Must for Every Employee:

Every employee, not just AI professionals, will require new fundamental competencies in their daily work, such as fast engineering. 90% of Indian leaders believe that the personnel they hire will require new skills in order to be prepared for the growth of AI. 78% of Indian workers feel they lack the necessary skills to complete their tasks.

The 2023 Work Trend Index polled 31,000 people across industries in 31 countries, including 14 Asia Pacific markets*, as well as billions of signals from Microsoft 365 emails, meetings, and chats, as well as labour trends on LinkedIn.

The data suggests that the pace of work has grown faster than humans can keep up, and this is having an impact on innovation. AI is poised to usher in a completely new way of working, and organisations that are the first to embrace AI will break the cycle, enhancing creativity and productivity for everyone.