The Pathway to AI Maturity: The Five Stages Organizations Navigate

The Pathway to AI Maturity: The Five Stages Organizations Navigate

Every week, a new study seems to pop up, exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) affects the workplace. Recently, Microsoft and LinkedIn shared their annual Work Trend Index, showing that workers are welcoming AI, while many employers are still undecided. Now, Asana and Anthropic have released this year’s State of AI at Work study.

The findings:
In March 2024, Asana and Anthropic surveyed over 5,000 knowledge workers in the U.S. and U.K., along with AI experts, to understand AI adoption in the workplace better. These results are meant to help executives refine their AI strategies and leverage the technology to enhance productivity and teamwork. Asana highlights three main findings:
1. The percentage of workers using AI weekly has risen by 44% over the past nine months, reaching 52%.
2. Despite the growth, only 7% of employees say their companies have mature AI implementations, which means integrating multiple AI tools successfully and regularly assessing their impact.
3. A significant 82% of workers state their organizations haven’t offered training on using generative AI.

While these statistics align with other studies, what makes this study unique is its focus on organizational AI maturity and practical insights for improving AI use. Dr. Rebecca Hinds from Asana’s Work Innovation Lab explains that the report is the first to categorize organizations by their stage of AI maturity: from Stage 1 (immature) to Stage 5 (mature). The study also outlines steps organizations need to take to reach mature AI usage, defined by the ‘5Cs’: Comprehension, Concerns, Collaboration, Context, and Calibration.

For example, in mature AI organizations, employees are 1.5 times more likely to see AI as a teammate, which boosts AI adoption, enthusiasm, and productivity. Also, mature organizations tend to have clear AI policies and guidelines, providing proper context for AI use. Feedback on AI usage is significantly more common in mature organizations, highlighting the importance of continuous calibration.

Though most organizations aren’t yet comfortable with AI as part of their strategy, Asana and Anthropic’s five-stage model serves as a guide for executives. Most respondents are in the early stages, with only 7% at the highest stage, though the report doesn’t specify which companies are at each stage. But what do these stages look like?

Five-stage journey to AI maturity:
1. AI Skepticism: Organizations recognize AI’s potential and begin exploring its applications.
2. AI Activation: Companies start pilot projects to get hands-on experience with AI, conducting small-scale experiments.
3. AI Experimentation: Larger AI initiatives are launched, tackling integration challenges.
4. AI Scaling: AI becomes part of operations, reshaping workflows and decision-making processes.
5. AI Maturity: Organizations skillfully leverage AI for transformative results, aligning it strategically with organizational goals.

Reaching the final stage involves improving comprehension through resources and training, prioritizing AI safety and reliability, selecting vendors with integrated data models, and ensuring AI responses are interpretable and directed by humans. Stage 5 organizations also embrace a human-centered approach and have strong policies to navigate AI adoption responsibly, with clear metrics to measure AI’s impact.

Advancement through the five ‘Cs’:
1. AI Comprehension: Understanding how to use AI is crucial. At Stage 1, only 20% of workers use AI weekly, but this jumps to 93% at Stage 5.
2. AI Concerns: Addressing workers’ concerns changes as companies mature. Initially, workers worry about understanding AI, but later stages bring concerns about ethics and authenticity.
3. AI Collaboration: Workers’ views on AI evolve, from seeing it as just a tool to treating it as a teammate in Stage 5.
4. AI Context: Mature companies have clear AI policies, promoting ethical usage, transparency, and accountability.
5. AI Calibration: Measuring AI’s effectiveness is essential. Productivity gains through AI rise from 20% in Stage 1 to 87% in Stage 5.

Dr. Hinds explains that Asana and Anthropic teamed up because both aim to advance safe and ethical AI systems and improve team collaboration. This isn’t their first collaboration; both R&D teams have worked together on new product experiences for nearly a year.