Understanding the readiness of banking industry employees to adopt artificial intelligence in frontier markets

Abstract

The rate of technological change and its effect on business is occurring at an alarmingly rapid pace. As a result of this, organisations seeking to increase their competitiveness are investing significantly in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence in order to stay relevant. The banking industry has been an early adopter of artificial intelligence. The banking industry workforce has been subjected to precipitated technological change. This research intended to understand the readiness of the Zambian banking industry employees to adopt artificial intelligence through the investigation of five factors and their impact on AI adoption. These five factors are organisational leadership clarity, employee skill levels, employee attitude to change, cost of implementation and the populationÕs access to technology. The research study was deductive and quantitative in nature and it was conducted utilising a sample of 365 employees from a named bank in Lusaka, Zambia. The results indicated that while all five factors directly impacted artificial intelligence adoption with varying levels of strength, only organisational leadership clarity and the populationÕs access to internet were significant predictors of artificial intelligence adoption. The studyÕs findings are of significant importance to organisations that seek to understand their workforceÕs ability to adapt to the adoption of artificial intelligence.