It’s February 11, readers. That means Future of Work Expo is officially underway!
Today through Thursday, February 13, thousands of attendees are joining us at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Future of Work Expo is part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW experience, which also features ITEXPO, MSP Expo and Enterprise Cybersecurity Expo, to name a few.
Today, Jon Arnold — Principal of J Arnold & Associates and Conference Chair of Future of Work Expo 2025 — introduced Michelle Ritz, Regional Product Marketing Manager from Jabra as she began her afternoon session. Titled “Great ‘Expect AI tions’ - Welcome to Work in the Age of AI,” the session covered several topics regarding what adoption of AI means for the modern (and oft-expectant) workforce.
Here’s a rundown for y’all:
- “How do workers feel about AI?” Ritz asked. “How do they use it? What are their expectations? What are the gaps?”
- “Work as we know it is undergoing a seismic shift.” (Very true. AI is moving fast; so fast, it can admittedly be difficult to keep up.)
- In 2024, Jabra studied several demographics; Gen Z, in particular. Ritz laid out the thought leadership that went into Jabra’s study, as well as what was determined to be Gen Z’s “radically different viewpoints of working.” She described how “54% of Gen Z employees feel stressed and/or overworked at work,” leading to disengagement.
- Other non-Gen Z business leaders and like decision-makers are reportedly also spending “62% of their time writing emails, and 57% of their time attending meetings.” Currently, it’s unclear whether this refers to “meetings-that-could’ve-been-emails” types of meetings. (I write that mainly in jest, with perhaps only a smidgeon of truth.)
- Ritz affirmed how people are spending more time working, often while making less of an actual impact. (Hence, general discouragement.) “One way to amend this,” she proposed, “is through time-saving and efficiency-boosting AI, and the modern-work-challenge-solving solutions behind it.”
- “While there are still healthy doses of skepticism, people are excited by this,” Ritz said. According to Jabra, 85% of surveyees are interred in AI, 84% of decision-spearheading business leaders believe it can make the workplace better in the long haul, 53% believe it can help them augment their own skills to become better leaders, and — interpret this however you may — “49% think AI is smarter than some of the people they actively work with.” (58% have also reportedly already purchased Copilot licenses, with 21-24% considering purchasing over roughly the next year.)
“Employees are looking to AI in order to help get rid of overly tedious busywork so they can actually focus on creativity and raw innovation,” Ritz added. “That’s more time to improve their overall health and work-life balance. That’s why Jabra wants employees to feel confident about playing with and exploring AI and harnessing it as more than just the latest bandwagon or buzzword.”
With that, Ritz closed the session with a look at the company’s many AI-focused advancements. (Particularly those related to “premium intelligent recaps,” i.e. real-time summaries for meeting participants, as well as transcription, clearer speech recognition and noise suppression that accurately captures what people are saying, helps to reduce cognitive load, and elevates experiences on both sides of a call and/or meeting.) We won’t spoil it all, but we encourage readers to learn more about it from Jabra here.
Edited by
Alex Passett
