The EMA’s Workforce 2030 report gives a useful picture of where AI adoption has reached among the more than 200 member businesses it surveyed.
57% were experimenting with or piloting AI and another 26% had it embedded in business processes. 18.5% reported having no clear owner for AI adoption.
EMA also found some businesses using enterprise AI tools alongside free consumer tools such as ChatGPT and Claude. Its conclusion is that employee adoption is moving faster than the governance and leadership arrangements around it.
There is a governance issue here even while organisations are experimenting.
Someone still has to decide what people may use, under what conditions and with what information. There also needs to be a point at which experimentation requires greater oversight, an approval, or a decision to stop.
That becomes more important as AI moves into business processes. The report points specifically to the need to distinguish decisions that must remain human led from those that may be AI assisted, and to be clear about oversight, accountability and escalation.
For a board, I think that leads to a fairly practical question. Can management explain how AI is actually being used, who has authority over that use, and whether the arrangements intended to govern it are operating?
That is the kind of question I help boards and executive teams answer. I test what is actually happening against the governance arrangements the organisation has put in place.
If that is a live issue in your organisation, feel free to get in touch.