Good morning,
Another day, another study on how companies are thinking about generative A.I.—this one from freelance platform Upwork. Some of the results confirm what other surveys (see Tuesday’s post) have shown—that in the short term, companies are looking to hire more people, not fewer, because of generative A.I. And that there’s a gap between the enthusiasm of CEOs and the enthusiasm of their teams.
A couple of other interesting takeaways from Upwork research, which surveyed 1,400 U.S. business leaders at the senior manager through C-suite level:
—Mid-sized companies (501-5,000 employees) are moving faster to adopt generative A.I. than large or small companies. Sixty-two percent said they are already leveraging generative A.I., compared to 41% of the bigger companies, and 56% of smaller ones. That likely reflects the risks around privacy, security, and accuracy that worry some big companies, as well as the lack of adequate talent at small ones.
—Remote-first companies are more likely to embrace A.I. Sixty-eight percent of full-time remote companies say they are leaning into this new technology, compared to 53% of companies that are full-time in the office.
I caught up with Upwork CEO Hayden Brown yesterday, who told me she’s convinced that generative A.I. will spark “a complete revolution in how work is happening at every level—and not just what the work is, but more fundamentally, how we do the work…This will break the model of how work has been done in the past.” She said job searches involving generative A.I. on her platform increased 1,300% between March and May, while job posts increased 1,000%. You can read more about the Upwork study here.
Also yesterday, I had lunch with the CEO of a company that has 126 years of history behind it—and remarkably, is still run by a member of the family that founded it. When I was a child, Smucker’s Apple Butter—the first product produced by the J.M. Smucker Co. in 1897—was my breakfast go-to. Today, the company’s brands include Jif, Folgers, Uncrustables, Milkbone, and more.
Mark Smucker has been CEO since 2016. I asked him how leadership has changed over the past decade. His response:
“As CEOs, we have to think about more things than we would have ever had to think about five or 10 years ago. Each of our constituents has differing opinions, thoughts, interest. As a consumer goods company, our first focus is meeting the consumer needs. But we have to take care our employees. What they feel matters. If it’s about social issues, we need to be aware of what is important to them. But we also need to recognize that we’re a business, and we are in business to be successful.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Nvidia chips
Nvidia is warning that a reported U.S. proposal to further limit chip exports to China will cause a “permanent loss of opportunities” for the industry. The Biden administration is considering expanding an export ban to cover lower-end processors used for A.I. systems. The U.S. has already told Nvidia to stop selling its most powerful A.I. chips to Chinese companies. The Wall Street Journal
Sri Lanka holiday
Sri Lanka starts a five-day holiday today so the government can restructure $42 billion in domestic debt. Officials claim the move is needed to meet conditions for a $3 billion IMF bailout and announced the extra time off to prevent bank runs. The country’s debt crisis last year led to widespread protests and the ousting of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Financial Times
Electric cars
The U.S. auto industry’s lobbying group is blasting a proposed Biden air pollution rule designed to boost EV adoption as “neither reasonable nor achievable.” The White House wants two-thirds of passenger cars sold in the U.S. to be fully electric by 2032. The Alliance of Automotive Innovation, whose members produce 97% of new cars in the U.S., argues the rule will increase costs and reduce consumer choice. The New York Times
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Fridays in the office are ‘dead forever’ according to one of New York’s biggest commercial landlords—and Mondays are ‘touch and go’ by Eleanor Pringle
GLAAD CEO: When leaders look at LGBTQ rights as a human issue, not a political one, that’s when they win by Fortune Editors
Crypto VC firm Paradigm plays down A.I. ambitions, but some investors and founders are frustrated by Anne Sraders and Leo Schwartz
Wedbush’s Dan Ives says Wall Street is underestimating the A.I. gold rush: This is no ‘hype cycle’ by Chloe Taylor
Satya Nadella bet $13 billion that OpenAI will change business, but the Microsoft CEO’s favorite use of ChatGPT is to explain German philosophy and Persian poetry by Stephen Pastis
Small businesses’ ‘COVID suit of armor’ is helping them defy the odds amid consistent predictions of an imminent recession by Will Daniel
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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