Only 7% of desk workers in Japan use ChatGPT on the job, a survey shows, compared with about half of their US counterparts who said they rely on the artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot.
The late-May online poll by the Tokyo-based MM Research Institute covered 13,814 professionals at companies and organizations in Japan and the US.
The survey showed a marked difference in awareness, with 46% of Japanese-side respondents saying they “don’t know” about ChatGPT, compared with 9% from the US.
More than 60% of US senior management respondents said they have a “strong interest” in the technology, while many in Japan are uncertain whether it is safe to use.
The companies that do use ChatGPT in both countries often employ it for such efficiency-boosting tasks as generating and summarizing text. Respondents across a broad range of roles have the chatbot write boilerplate email text, summarize meeting minutes or organize large amounts of information.
Future goals for the technology include advanced education and training as well as applying it to new fields, according to the survey.
The results are more split when it comes to creative applications. About 60% of users on the American side use ChatGPT to come up with ideas, compared with 25% on the Japanese side, while 45% and 14% utilize it to computer code.
The chatbot is widely used in human resources to devise interview questions and phrase text in job postings. Users are fairly satisfied with the results, with more than 90% saying they plan to keep using the technology.
The biggest hurdles to ChatGPT adoption were similar on the Japanese and American sides, with nearly half of the users pointing to concern about response accuracy. Privacy and ChatGPT’s comprehension of user questions were each cited by about a third of users on both sides, with the development of company rules for the technology not far behind.
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In Japan, ChatGPT has gained a bigger foothold among large companies, with 9% of businesses with 3,000 or more employees using the chatbot, compared with 4% of those with 100 or fewer workers. Infrastructure and academic research are the top industries, at 10% each, with retail, government and real estate at the bottom with half that percentage or less.
Some Japanese developers are working on their own large language models — the foundation for generative AI chatbots — for not only internal use, but also in services for customers.
“There is a difference in interest among management between Japan and the US, but Japanese companies have an advantage when it comes to making it easier for themselves to use,” MM Research said.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.