The significance of interns trust in artificial intelligence adoption

Abstract

Internship is a year where graduates who are referred to as interns, who possess theoretical knowledge enters the workplace to gain practical knowledge into the relevant field of study. In the healthcare industry, the pharmacist interns enter the workplace on contractual basis to fulfil the requirements of internship by undergoing standardised training programs. More organisations are introducing technology as part of the organisational strategy. The understanding is that the interns under the supervision of tutors will, during the practical training, learn to trust and adopt technology to be efficient and productive. Therefore, it has become important to understand these constructs by conducting the study in the context of South Africa. The objective of this study was to investigate the significance of trust in artificial intelligence adoption by the interns during internship. The trust in artificial intelligence adoption is crucial to enabling the interns in achieving the objectives of internship which is to learn and develop into an autonomous pharmacist. This study assumed a qualitative approach and data was collected semi-structured interviews, exploratory and open-ended to ensure participants shared their lived experiences into the phenomenon of technology adoption. Twenty respondents were interviewed following in-depth, semi-structured interviews using Microsoft Teams. The key findings following thematic analysis revealed that trust in artificial intelligence adoption play a significant role on the learning and development of interns during internship. The findings reveal that the ease of use and the perceived usefulness of artificial intelligence were the key contributors towards interns trusting and adopting artificial intelligence. This study contributed to the existing literature on technology adoption.