Research Drop in Brief:
- The percentage of organizations piloting or deploying AI solutions has risen by 20% since 2023.
- It’s time to focus on strong HR and IT collaboration to drive holistic AI integration and successful workforce transformation. HR is in the best spot to help IT bring employees along on the AI journey.
- HR needs resourcing to play “catch up” to IT, such as greater access to organization-sponsored AI tools, involvement in training/upskilling, and partaking in cross-functional experimentation.
AI continues to be ubiquitous. We see massive growth in AI adoption across industries, with the percentage of organizations piloting or deploying AI solutions up by 20% since 20231. With this exponential growth comes rapid change. New strategies, recommendations, use cases, and best practices are discovered and shared on what feels like a daily basis. In 2025, we are seeing organizations strengthening functional partnerships to help organizational AI transformation succeed. Multiple departments exist in organizations to bring unique skills sets, expertise, and perspectives, and these diverse perspectives should be included when thinking about AI at your organization. To date, IT has been leading the charge for AI transformation, but more and more we see high-performing organizations involving HR in their strategy and implementation.
IT brings the tech; HR brings the people. HR and IT are both critical to AI transformation – and shouldn’t be operating in silos. HR is set up to lead the charge in reskilling, upskilling, and talent management in the era of AI, while IT is orchestrating and managing the tools and systems2. A benefit of including HR is that it deepens the connection to employees, increasing the involvement of employees in the transformation and reducing their fear of the unknown. When these functions are aligned, they accelerate AI implementation and workforce integration by deepening adoption, increasing ROI, and strengthening data governance.
Our data shows that 73% of HR employees and 82% of IT employees believe AI will transform work for the better3. While this majority is encouraging, what can we learn about HR employees’ AI experience to explain an almost 10 percentage point difference between functions? And how can these functions be better positioned to collaborate and work in tandem? For this month’s Research Drop, we explore the different AI perceptions and experiences between HR and IT and how organizations can better align these critical functions to drive a more holistic AI transformation.
IT employees’ advanced AI engagement reflects their central role in organizational technology
As AI is inherently a technology, it makes sense that IT employees might be the first functional group to learn about it and work with it. Technology is engrained in their day-to-day work and their identity; 81% of IT employees agree that it’s important for them to be among the first to use new technologies. This natural inclination and excitement for technology innovation places IT in a key position for AI transformation. IT leaders are looking to shift the function of the IT department from building and maintaining to orchestrating and innovating, further expanding its scope to streamline transformation efforts across business facets4. This key role has fast-tracked IT employees’ perceived value of integrating AI at work – 79% of IT employees are excited about a future where everyone uses AI at work.
For HR employees, their experience with AI at work is slowly growing, taking a bit more time to catch up with their IT peers. While 68% of IT employees (and 77% of IT leaders) believe that AI in their workplace will boost revenue and financial success, only 55% of HR employees (and 63% of HR leaders) feel the same. As more HR departments get involved with their organization’s AI transformation, we expect this vision to crystallize and more HR use cases and applications to become tangible. For example, the Employee Self-Service Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot (ESS) enhances HR efficiency and employee satisfaction by streamlining processes, automating routine tasks, reducing support tickets, and providing customizable, user-friendly solutions. Integrated AI solutions such as ESS are changing HR functionality by reducing transactional tasks and creating space to focus more on relational tasks (e.g., mental health support), which are core to HR’s mission5.
When planning HR and IT collaboration, focus on the common goals between the groups and how to use their unique perspectives and skillsets to achieve these goals. For example, a shared priority for both groups is data security. When asked about the biggest challenges of AI implementation, 28% of HR leaders mentioned compliance with data protection laws (e.g., HIPAA) and 25% mentioned ethical concerns about AI use6. HR is responsible for protecting and managing employees. When combined with IT’s expertise in security and protection, these challenges remain a priority and are effectively managed throughout large-scale AI rollouts.
Another shared bet is skilling. IT is positioned to provide user guides and technical walkthroughs for new technology. HR provides support from a skills perspective, providing deep expertise in learning motivation and efficacy, along with resources for large-scale development programs. By leveraging the unique strengths of both HR and IT, organizations effectively address challenges and drive successful AI transformation. Know, however, that success for this partnership requires equitable access to AI tools and resources for both business units.
Access to organization-sponsored AI tools continues to be a differentiator for value realization
While the majority of HR and IT employees use AI at least once a week (66% of HR and 75% of IT), organization-sponsored access to AI tools and technologies isn’t equal. When asked how many of the AI tools they use at work are sponsored by their organization, 72% of IT employees reported that their organization provides all or most of the AI tools they use. Only 59% of HR employees reported the same. With half of HR employees having to BYOAI (bring your own AI) to work, this doesn’t allow organizations to capitalize on the benefits of strategic AI adoption at scale7, such as ROI tracking and centralized training programs.
HR employees also report seeing less success stories circulated around their function. While 77% of IT employees feel inspired by stories of people successfully using AI at work, only 68% of HR employees feel the same. When employees are given the space and resources to experiment, it fuels a virtuous loop where more experimentation creates more realized value, which in turn leads to more experimentation, etc8.
Access is a propellant of adoption and realized value. We researched a set of positive outcomes of AI adoption, called RIVA, or Realized Individual Value of AI. RIVA encapsulates various ways that an employee can see a direct impact of AI use in their day-to-day work. When we break out HR and IT employees with “all or most” of their AI tools provided by their organization versus “some or none” of their AI tools provided by their organization, the difference in RIVA is clear.
For both HR and IT employees with high access to organization-sponsored AI tools, more than 75% report all six RIVA outcomes, ranging from stress reduction to faster task completion. When that access is low, reported RIVA drops by up to 17%. Organization-sponsored tools likely come with leadership support, training, scenario libraries, and other resources that help employees capture value sooner. But without those scaled rollout benefits, employees are left on their own to navigate the changing workplace and to not get left behind. To drive a strong collaboration between HR & IT, AI access for both functions should be a foundational step.
We see across these groups that while the direct benefits of using AI are easiest to realize (e.g. AI helps complete tasks faster), the more subtle benefits are the hardest to achieve (e.g. AI helps make better decisions or reduces overall work stress). For example, we see high reported task speed improvement for employees even with low access, likely due to BYOAI tools being simple to apply to direct situations. However, for true AI transformation, the goal is to tackle those transformative use cases, where day-to-day no longer looks the same as it did a few years ago (or even last week). The greater the organization-sponsored access, the better the chance of creating impact for both HR & IT employees, which positions them to be a driving force of organization-wide transformation.
Lean into HR and IT collaboration to accelerate AI transformation
Bringing together HR and IT for AI transformation strengthens the impact and value that your organization gets from investing in AI technologies and tools. Their skillsets are ideal to work in tandem to ensure that the proper systems in place and the workforce is ready to adopt them. We offer three recommendations on how to lean into this partnership: ensure equitable resources, increase experimentation and sharing, and leverage HR to get closer to employees.
Ensure equitable cross-functional training and resourcing
Training and development are key to learning any new technology. According to the World Economic Forum, only 35% of employees are trained and knowledgeable in AI9. Within our sample, while 73% of HR employees and 80% of IT employees reported that they were adequately trained in AI and understand how to use it in their work, only 22% and 31% strongly agreed to this, respectively. We may see discrepancies in how much training an employee thinks they need, versus how much more they could have when training is invested in and centralized.
As IT is front and center in the AI transformation, their educational opportunities are likely the highest. For HR, however, 40% of HR leaders say a lack of resources (e.g., time, money, staff) is the biggest barrier to AI implementation6. This holds HR back from evolving beyond tactical use cases into strategic use cases, where they need investment in AI-based data and technology competences10. With the right resources, HR can take the lead role in a partnership with IT to identify organization-wide skill gaps and training needs.
Increase experimentation and sharing between peers, teams, and business units
The more opportunities employees have to experiment with AI, the better they get and the more value they see. As we’ve seen, however, some departments are better set up to lean into these processes. Large differences in AI adoption can create in-group/out-group mentalities that drive business silos and create limitations in data and information sharing, scaling AI technology, and cross-functional collaboration11. These are critical components of a successful AI transformation, where AI is optimized throughout the organization.
In addition to finding balance in AI opportunities cross-functionally, seek to improve the effectiveness of collaboration and the culture of sharing. Design inclusive, common languages between functional teams that help bridge the gap between tech and non-tech teams11. Create communities or forums where employees across the organization can share quick tips, prompts, or use cases that helped them realize deeper value in AI12. Spin up a HR and IT taskforce dedicated to cross-pollination of resources focused on AI adoption. All these initiatives can help bring your teams closer together.
Leverage HR to bring employees closer to and more invested in AI transformation
With AI advancements moving quicker than any previous technology at work, it can be overwhelming to keep up and employees may feel this snowball effect of being "prepared enough.” Employees may feel uncertain about how to get involved and upskilled with AI and may feel anxious about their future. HR is uniquely positioned to help employees feel grounded and informed. Organizations at the forefront of AI adoption are 2.5x as likely to have HR involve employees in identifying tasks, roles, and processes suitable for automation13. HR provides a direct line to the employee voice and employee input. Not only can HR directly influence IT’s implementation strategy and priorities but it can strengthen employees’ adoption tendencies. HR and IT can collaborate on measuring AI transformation success through employee technology behaviors and employee sentiment feedback. Bringing these functions together maximizes AI implementation and ROI measurement capabilities. Learn more about how HR and IT can measure readiness, adoption, and impact of AI solutions (like Copilot) throught our Copilot Measurement Playbook.
A dynamic collaboration between HR and IT departments drives successful AI transformation. IT's central role in technology and HR's focus on your people creates a powerful synergy, leading to effective AI implementation and workforce integration. By fostering cross-functional training, experimentation, and collaboration, organizations can unlock the full potential of AI, enhancing both employee adoption and realized value of AI.
Stay tuned for our April Research Drop to keep up with what the People Science team is learning!
1 MIT Sloan Management Review. (November 11, 2024). Learning to manage uncertainty, with AI.
2 Forbes. (February 11, 2025). IT isn't the new HR, and AI shouldn't be leading your team.
3 Microsoft People Science Research analyzing 413 global employees in HR & IT based on our larger April 2024 AI Readiness Study dataset. Note: participants were asked to respond to questions around “generative artificial intelligence” which has been shortened to “AI” for the sake of this blog.
5 Mercer. (2025). Generative AI will transform three key HR roles.
6 SHRM. (January 9, 2025). There's still time to revolutionize HR with AI.
7 Microsoft WorkLab. (May 2024). 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report.
10 Forbes. (January 22, 2025). 3 ways HR leaders can look inward to prepare for upheaval in 2025.
11 Harvard Business Review. (May-June 2024). For success with AI, bring everyone on board.
12 Microsoft WorkLab. (February 2025). When it comes to AI, don’t build ‘Island of Intelligence.’
13 i4cp. (January 23, 2025). Report: Workforce readiness in the era of AI.
Updated Mar 11, 2025
Version 3.0
Megan_Benzing
Microsoft
Microsoft
