According to a study by management consultancy Horváth, reported by the business magazine “Capital” both German and international companies anticipate a significant decline in their employees’ skills due to the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI). A substantial 74 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that AI tools cause employees to “unlearn independent thinking and begin to trust the responses received without critical assessment”.
The survey, which polled executives in 200 companies across Germany, the United States, and the Nordic countries, confirms a fundamental challenge facing many businesses: while there is high expectation for AI-driven productivity increases, there remains uncertainty about how human experience and learned skills can be preserved within the workforce.
This concern is particularly acute in the service sector, where 85 percent of respondents anticipate a competency decline. Conversely, the fear is significantly lower in the industrial sector, where many processes have historically been harder for AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to take over.
However, executives in the manufacturing sector are also less likely to anticipate any benefit from AI adoption. Only slightly over half of these leaders reported that their companies are successfully generating a measurable and quantifiable benefit from digitalization efforts.
