Millennials have embraced AI more fully than any other generation, according to a new survey by Slack, a Salesforce company.
Driving the news:
- One in three workers between the ages of 28 and 43 use generative AI tools daily, and one in four (25%) employ them multiple times per week, the study found.
- This cohort is also more likely to understand and trust AI agents, according to the research, and millennial workers lead all their peers in using the technology to increase productivity, automate repetitive tasks, and take on more strategic responsibilities.
Of course: Gen Z is not far behind in any of these categories — and far ahead of their oldest colleagues in using AI on the job. But companies have yet to fully benefit from their new hires’ AI experience.
- “Gen Z is using AI a lot for educational and personal projects,” said Lucas Puente, Vice President of Research for Slack. “But when it comes to the workforce, they haven’t established the same level of comfort.”
Gen Z is using AI a lot for educational and personal projects, but when it comes to the workforce, they haven’t established the same level of comfort.
Lucas Puente, Vice President of Research for Slack
Go deeper: That’s where millennials can be a company’s biggest training asset. These more seasoned, AI-savvy employees can help newer hires get up to speed.
For example: A key thing millennials can teach their newest coworkers is good judgment, said Jenny Simmons, Vice President and Global Head of Enterprise Learning at Salesforce. Gen Z must learn how to set boundaries around technology, when they can trust what the AI is telling them, and when to be skeptical. That usually requires deep expertise in subject areas that newer hires have yet to acquire.
- “Team members need to understand which tools they should be using, where they’re allowed to put sensitive data into the system and where they shouldn’t,” she said. “The cohort that’s been in the office for a while will know the types of outputs the company is looking for and how to check that against what things like AI agents are doing.”
Learning curve: Learning how to collaborate with both human colleagues and the emerging agentic workforce is another area where newer workers could use guidance. Developing relationships that reach across different areas of the business will be crucial to both their careers and the success of the company, said Gemma Quinn, Salesforce’s Vice President of Global University Recruiting.
- “When you come out of university and into a large company, one of the first things you need to learn is why networking is so important,” she said. “When people sign on for their first full-time jobs at Salesforce, we set up networking events for them to meet with people who work in different groups across the company. And it just evolves from there.”
On that note: Having built their careers during periods of rapid technological advancement, millennials can also help assure newly hired Gen Z workers that AI is not going to take away their opportunities to grow and learn on the job.
- “AI will not eliminate entry-level jobs, but it will cause these jobs to evolve,” said Quinn. “But newly hired employees will be able to do a lot more than they could even a few years ago because of this technology.”
More information:
- Read more about the Slack research and find more data about agentic AI on the Salesforce Stat Library
- Discover how digital labor will reshape the enterprise
- Read about Salesforce’s strategy for agentic AI adoption
