CDN NEWS | 
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by Rob Roach, ATB Economics
We recently reported that about one-fifth (19.2%) of businesses in Canada report using AI to produce goods or deliver services.
Survey results released today shed light on how many workers (including self-employed individuals) have been using AI.
As of March, 41.6% of workers said they used at least one AI tool or automation technology as part of their main job or business over the previous year.
Zeroing in on generative AI (e.g., tools used to produce text, images or computer code) about one in three workers (35.9%) reported using it.
Not surprisingly, usage varied across workers in different industries. About two-thirds of workers (65.6%) in the professional, scientific and technical services sector said they use generative AI compared to just 16.3% in the accommodation and food services sector (see the chart below).
The use of generative AI also varies widely across occupations. Managers were the most likely to report its use at 75.1%. The lowest usage rate was among tradespeople and transport and equipment operators at 14.7% (see the chart below).
In terms of how often workers use AI, the majority (63.5%) reported using it “moderately” (i.e., for some but not most tasks); 24.9% said they use it for almost no tasks; 8.0% said they use it across most tasks; and 3.6% said they use it for everything.
For the 64.1% of workers who were not using generative AI, the most common reason was that it had no applicability to their work (56.0%). Another 21.6% said they were not interested (see the chart below).
Bottom line: The effort to automate tasks has been a key feature of the economy since at least the Industrial Revolution. From accounting software to self-checkouts at the grocery store, using computers to automate work is also not new. The latest wave of AI tech (including generative AI), however, is thought by many to be particularly transformative in this regard.
Time will tell just how broadly and how deeply this new wave of AI will change the work humans do, but the survey results from March make two things clear:
1) Generative AI is already being used by a significant portion of workers. It’s far from everybody and it’s concentrated in certain industries and professions, but at about a third of all workers, its presence is being felt.
2) There is still a lot to be determined with regard to this new wave of technology. A large portion of the two-thirds of non-users don’t see the applicability of generative AI to their work or are simply not interested. That could, of course, change and potentially quite quickly.
At the same time, the results show that a lot of businesses, organizations and entrepreneurs are actively testing what these new tools can actually do. The results of these tests will be instrumental in determining what’s next for AI, and its adoption, at work.
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