Artificial intelligence in companies: its application is a competitive advantage today, its absence is a competitive disadvantage tomorrow

The leading domestic job portal conducted a comprehensive survey among its corporate clients on AI usage habits and experiences. Nearly half of the organizations surveyed (47%) indicated that they have already integrated solutions supported by artificial intelligence into their daily operations. Employers who are not yet working with AI-based systems most often cite a lack of appropriate expertise and concerns about data security and data protection. According to a third of respondents, another obstacle is that they are not sufficiently familiar with the market AI developments relevant to them, or they do not see an area where they could be effectively implemented. This clearly indicates that there are still significant reserves in corporate education.

An important support in this regard is, among others, the regulation known as the AI Act, which provides a framework for the responsible use of AI in the European Union and contributes to managing the risks associated with the technology. The company’s previous article provides an overview of data management and data protection issues related to recruitment, as well as the main rules of the AI ​​Act regarding artificial intelligence applied in recruitment.

Content production and ad optimization – these are the most common areas of AI use

Companies that have already introduced AI tools into their workflows reported experiences in a number of areas. The largest proportion of respondents (67%) use such technologies to perform marketing and communication tasks, such as content production, ad optimization, or social media management. 39% of employers who are experienced in this field operate the aforementioned technology to perform administrative and office tasks, such as minute taking, calendar management, or translation. Another 32% are at the forefront in this regard in the field of HR and recruitment. In the IT and software development segment, AI services are primarily used for code generation, automation of testing processes, and cybersecurity measures by a quarter of respondents (26%), and a similar proportion have already adapted them in the sales area, in connection with lead generation, customer segmentation, and various forecasting. A smaller number of organizations also indicated customer service (19%), finance and accounting (15%), legal (13%), and logistics (7%) functions.

“On our job portal, for example, we usually support the production of advertising content with AI services, and the verification of advertisements is now fully automated, we use AI-based systems for this: in the latter case, a colleague only intervenes where the software detects a problem – while previously we solved this exclusively with human resources. We use the freed up capacities for customer experience and service development.”

– Imre Tüzes, Commercial Director of Profession.hu, mentioned, adding that “we also support the registration and browsing of job seekers with AI tools, such as the function called CV Parser, which extracts information from uploaded CVs automatically extracts the necessary data and then fills in the registration form, making data capture faster and more accurate”.

In terms of usage, most employers (40%) do not have a clearly defined method and employees are left to their own decision whether to rely on publicly available models to make their work easier. One in four companies is currently testing AI tools in smaller projects or only on an experimental basis.

Increasing efficiency and reducingmonotonous task – such business benefits are realized by companies introducing AI

The survey also addressed the essential question of what business benefits companies perceive from the AI ​​systems they use. The vast majority of respondents (56%) mentioned the shortening of workflow times as the primary benefit, and nearly a third (29%) consider the reduction of repetitive, monotonous tasks, which were previously performed by colleagues, to be a positive benefit of automation. “Artificial intelligence primarily relieves the burden on colleagues, and the freed-up capacity can be invested in value-creating work, which can even mean a market advantage for a company. A technological development is sustainable if we examine its effects not only from a business perspective, but also from a human perspective – how it affects colleagues’ motivation, mental health and organizational culture,” added Csilla Németh-Király, Customer Service and Operations Director at Profession.hu.

In addition, a quarter of employers using AI services (26%) experienced a decrease in their costs spent on human resources and operations, while every fourth respondent (25%) highlighted the high added value of artificial intelligence and mentioned deeper data analyses that help decision-making. Another 20% experienced a noticeable improvement in quality in terms of more accurate forecasts and more precise production. On the other hand, a quarter of companies have not yet experienced any business benefits from artificial intelligence (15%), and a smaller proportion (10%) are not aware of any such tangible benefits.

AI use in recruitment: still a competitive advantage today, soon a basic expectation

Relatively few companies have direct experience of the impact of technology on recruitment, but the significant majority of respondents using AI systems (70%) stated positively: companies primarily highlighted time savings and increased efficiency as advantages, while potential biases and related ethical concerns were identified as disadvantages.

Weighing the opportunities and risks offered by AI software available in recruitment, and summarizing their future role According to Tüzes, “the widespread use of technology in this segment is not a vision of the future, but a reality today. Its use today still represents a competitive advantage, but its absence can quickly become a competitive disadvantage. In addition to consistent and accurate operation, it can achieve significant time and capacity savings, but its introduction requires caution due to the potentially high costs and the aforementioned data security aspects.”