Abstract: Invisible conducted this survey of 600 randomly sampled American business leaders on February 1st, 2023. Respondents’ organizational roles included C-Suite executives, senior management, and middle management. We ran a similar survey back in September 2022 which can be read here.

‍Q1. Has your concern over an economic downturn increased, decreased, or stayed the same in the last 3 months?

• My concern has increased - 65.50%
• My concern has decreased - 12.00%
• My concern has stayed the same - 22.50%

‍Q2. Is your company preparing for a recession? If so, how?

*Percent (Answers) is calculated by dividing each answer count by the total counts collected.

• Yes, by freezing hiring - 32.83% (23.59%)
• Yes, by cutting staff - 26.33% (18.92%)
• Yes, by cutting projects 28.33% (20.36%)
• Yes, by cutting software, apps, or other tools - 17.67% (12.69%)
• No my company not preparing for a recession 34.00% (24.43%)

‍Q3. As a result of economic volatility, has your company’s revenue increased, decreased, or stayed the same?

• Revenue has increased - 21.33%
• Revenue has decreased - 36.83%
• Revenue has stayed the same - 41.83%

‍Q4. Since the start of the new year, has your company adopted more automation technology in response to economic volatility?

• Yes - 53.33%
• No - 46.67%

‍Q5. Do you plan on adding more automation technology to your business in the next 3 months?

• Yes - 59.00%
• No - 41.00%

‍Q6. Have you introduced any new AI tools to your workflow in the past 3 months?

• Yes - 46.83%
• No - 53.17%

‍Q7. What sort of work are you automating or augmenting with AI?

*Percent (Answers) is calculated by dividing each answer count by the total counts collected.

• Copywriting - 28.47% (12.66%)
• Data Operations - 64.06% (28.48%)
• Customer Support - 50.18% (22.31%)
• Talent and Recruiting - 36.30% (16.14%)
• Manufacturing - 38.79% (17.25%)
• Other - 7.12% (3.16%)

‍Q8. What value are you trying to create by using AI?

*Percent (Answers) is calculated by dividing each answer count by the total counts collected.

• Developing smarter products or services - 59.79% (28.09%)
• Making business processes more intelligent - 55.16% (25.92%)
• Automating repetitive or mundane tasks - 50.18% (23.58%)
• Get more work done without adding headcount - 42.35% (19.90%)
• Other - 5.34% (2.51%)

‍Q9. Have you used the AI tool ChatGPT for work?

• Yes - 42.50%
• No - 57.50%

‍Q10. Is your business actively hiring or is hiring on hold?

• My business is actively hiring - 49.33%
• Hiring is on hold at my business - 50.67%

‍Q11. Would your business consider outsourcing and/or automation to do work left by hiring gaps?

• Yes, we would consider outsourcing - 22.37%
• Yes, we would consider automation - 27.96%
• Yes, we would consider both outsourcing and automation - 26.97%
• No, we would consider neither - 22.70%

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