Want to know why young managers are currently outperforming many established managers? We have extracted the essence of the Google Workspace study: Find out how Gen Z is generating real competitive advantage through radical AI use and how you can adapt these tactics for yourself right away.
The Google Workspace Study 2025
Summary:
- 74 percent of young leaders already use generative AI on a daily basis to drastically reduce routine administrative tasks and free up time for real strategy work.
- Speed beats perfection, as digital pioneers pragmatically view AI output as a rough diamond for rapid fine-tuning rather than a final result.
- Data synthesis replaces manual Excel work by instantly transforming complex meeting transcripts or raw data into actionable action items and clear tables.
- The AI sparring partner validates business strategies before important deadlines by specifically taking on the role of the critical counterpart to uncover logical gaps.
- Active reverse mentoring is the key to success in order to combine the technical prompt competence of the young with the strategic experience of the seniors in the company.
- A full working day per week can be saved through consistent AI integration, making the immediate switch to secure enterprise solutions economically compelling.
About the study:
- The Google Workspace study, conducted by The Harris Poll, is based on a survey of 1,007 knowledge workers across the U.S., aged 22–39, who either hold a leadership role or aspire to one.
- Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/google-workspace-study-reveals-more-than-90-of-rising-leaders-want-ai-with-personalization-302632689.html
How young executives use AI
Hand on heart: When you think of AI in the office, you probably still have the image of the tech-savvy young professional who secretly uses ChatGPT for emails in your head. Erase that image immediately. The reality is different, and it’s evolving rapidly. A recent study by Google Workspace in collaboration with The Economist Impact provides hard facts: The real drivers of the AI revolution are not interns, but young decision-makers. We are talking about the so-called “young leaders” aged between 22 and 39. This group is not waiting for permission from the IT department – they are creating facts.
Why is this study relevant to you? Because it reveals a massive shift in skills:
- Aggressive adoption: while older generations often still debate risks, 74% of young leaders have already firmly integrated Generative AI into their everyday work.
- Not hype, but a tool: Forget the idea that this is a gimmick. The motivation is purely pragmatic: avoiding bureaucratic burnout and freeing up time for real strategy.
- The new standard: For these managers, AI is the basis for high performance. If you don’t use tools like NotebookLM or Claude, you are simply working too slowly from their point of view.
The power structure is shifting. Experience used to be the most important currency in the company. Today, this hierarchy is being broken down. A junior manager with the right prompt engineering skillset can now deliver output that used to require entire teams. For you, this means: adapt or get left behind. The study makes it clear that productivity is not a question of age, but of mindset. Let’s take a look at what we need to learn from the “young leaders” to avoid being overtaken.
The Google Workspace Study: Why Gen Z and Millennials are taking over AI leadership
Hand on heart: when you think of AI in the office, you probably still have the image of the tech-savvy young professional secretly using ChatGPT for emails in your head. Erase that image immediately. The reality is different, and it is developing rapidly.
A recent study by Google Workspace in collaboration with The Economist Impact reveals hard facts: The real drivers of the AI revolution are not interns, but young decision-makers. We are talking about the so-called “young leaders” aged between 22 and 39. This group is not waiting for permission from the IT department – they are creating facts.
Why is this study relevant for you as an AI rock star? Because it reveals a massive shift in skills:
- Aggressive adoption: while older generations often still debate risks, 74% of young leaders have already firmly integrated Generative AI into their everyday work. They do not use the tools sporadically, but as a daily lever.
- Not hype, but a tool: forget the idea that this is a gimmick. The motivation of this age group is purely pragmatic. They want to avoid bureaucracy burnout. It’s about automating routine administrative tasks to free up time for strategically valuable work.
- The new standard: For these young managers, AI is not a “nice-to-have”, but the basis for high performance. If you are not using tools such as NotebookLM or ChatGPT, they believe you are simply working too slowly.
The balance of power is shifting.
Experience used to be the most important currency in the company. Today, this hierarchy is being broken down. A junior manager with the right prompt engineering skillset can now deliver output that used to require entire teams or years of experience.
For you, this means: adapt or get left behind. The study makes it clear that productivity is not a question of age, but of mindset. If you don’t want the “young leaders” to pass you by, you not only have to understand their methods, you have to apply them better than they do.
The “AI gap”: differences in mindset between senior management and young leaders
While many carpets are still debating guidelines and risk minimization, young leaders (Gen Z and late millennials) have long since created facts. This is the so-called “AI gap”: a massive gap between the hesitation of the older guard and the pragmatic “just do it” approach of the next generation of managers. According to the Google study, young managers are not using generative AI as a gimmick, but as a real competitive advantage.
What are they doing differently?
- Agility beats perfectionism: older managers often expect immediate, error-free results from software. Young leaders, on the other hand, see AI output as diamonds in the rough. They are not afraid of hallucinations, but see the prompt as a starting point for rapid iteration. The trust level is higher because they know that they are still fine-tuning the result anyway.
- No waiting for IT: This is the trickiest point for your company. If the official tech stack doesn’t offer a solution, young leaders don’t wait for a ticket in Q3. They proactively look for external solutions. This is often right on the edge of shadow IT, but it drives innovation massively. Your job? Offer them secure enterprise solutions before they dump their data into free public tools.
- From delegator to maker: traditional management often used to mean distributing tasks and controlling results. Young leaders use AI to execute themselves. With an LLM as a co-pilot, they create prototypes, analyses or marketing drafts themselves in minutes instead of waiting weeks for input.
You need to decide which side of this gap you want to be on. Here is the direct comparison for your mindset upgrade:
- Old school (assistant mindset): “I need an assistant to do the work for me 1:1. If the AI makes a mistake, it’s no good.”
- New school (co-pilot mindset): “I use AI as a sparring partner to increase my own output speed tenfold. I correct mistakes, I take the speed with me.”
Rockstar tip: Copy the carefree attitude of Gen Z. Don’t wait for the perfect set of rules. Grab a tool, test it on a real problem and learn through the process. This is the only way to prevent your productivity from becoming obsolete.
Copying allowed: three concrete AI workflows of the “young leaders” (practical guide)
Gen Z doesn’t wait for official permission from the IT department – they simply optimize to get there faster. If you want to play at the “rock star level”, you need to stop seeing AI as just a gimmick and start integrating it deeply into your processes. Here are three workflows that young leaders are already using to gain a competitive edge, according to the Google Workspace Survey. Copy them. Now.
- Communication & “Inbox Zero” via speed drafting
The flood of emails is the ultimate productivity killer. Young leaders use AI not just to reply, but to manage context. Instead of typing polite phrases manually, they throw bullet points (“bullet point thinking”) into the LLM and have the draft generated.
Pro tip: Use “rewrite” functions (e.g. in Gemini or Copilot) to adjust the tone. An angry, quickly typed Slack draft is transformed into a diplomatic, professional message at the click of a mouse, without you wasting emotional energy.
- Data synthesis instead of Excel hell
Manually trawling through spreadsheets is a thing of the past. The new generation feeds raw data exports directly into AI to recognize patterns and turn complex reports into management summaries in seconds. It’s not about the amount of data, but about the speed of insight (“time to insight”).
Actionable Advice: Use this prompt for your next meeting transcript to deliver immediate results:
> “Analyze this meeting transcript. Create a table with the columns ‘Topic’, ‘Decision made’ and ‘Action item (with responsible person)’. Highlight potential blockers or risks in bold.”
- The “sparring partner” for strategy
Before a presentation goes to the board or a customer, it must be watertight. Young leaders use LLMs as a critical counterpart. They upload their argumentation structure and ask the AI to play the “devil’s advocate”.
The aim is to validate business ideas: “Where are the logical gaps in this pitch? What counter-questions would a skeptical CFO ask?”. This way, you go into the real battle perfectly prepared because you already know the weak points of your strategy and have eliminated them.
Strategic classification: risks and the need for “reverse mentoring”
Let’s talk turkey: If you, as an established manager, delegate the topic of AI completely to the “digital natives”, you are falling into a dangerous skills trap. Today, it’s no longer enough to release budgets for tools that you only know how they work from the headlines. If you want to make strategic decisions, you need to understand the technological feasibility – otherwise you will be left behind in your own meeting room.
But beware: the intuitive approach of Gen Z also has its downsides. Speed is the new currency, but speed is not the same as precision. This is where your experience becomes indispensable.
Pay attention to the following points to keep the balance:
- Human-in-the-loop is mandatory: young leaders often trust output faster. You have to be the critical filter. LLMs hallucinate, make up facts or deliver biased results. Your seniority is the firewall against mediocre or false results.
- Quality over quantity: Just because a workflow completes five hours of work in five minutes does not automatically mean the result is first-class. Use AI as an accelerator, not as a substitute for technical depth.
- Understanding context: A junior may be better at prompting, but you know the company history, the political nuances and the long-term strategy. AI provides the text, you provide the context.
The solution: turn the tables
Instead of frontal teaching from the top down, we now need radical reverse mentoring. This is not a nice HR slogan, but a tough competitive advantage. Bring young talent into the C-suite. Let them show you which AI tools they use to summarize meetings or debug code.
Let them show you how modern prompt engineering works. In return, you teach them strategic thinking and political navigation. If you can create this symbiosis – the tech affinity of the youngsters paired with your business intelligence – then you will build a real powerhouse that not only acts quickly, but also smartly.
Cost-benefit and outlook: Is AI the only career accelerator?
Let’s talk turkey: At the end of the day, what counts in business is the return on investment (ROI) – and not just for the company, but for your personal workforce. Generation Z has long understood this. They don’t use AI as a gimmick, but as a hard economic factor for their own careers.
According to the Google Workspace study, it’s not about minutes, but about massive efficiency gains. Young leaders who fully integrate generative AI often save the working time of an entire working day per week. Ask yourself: What could you achieve if you had every Friday “off” for strategic planning, networking or further training instead of drowning in floods of emails?
The cost-benefit factor shifts drastically:
- Strategy over routine: the AI takes over the “doing” (preparing data, drafting emails), you take over the “thinking” (making decisions).
- Quality instead of quantity: you no longer produce garbage faster, but iterate high-quality concepts in a fraction of the time.
A look into the crystal ball also shows that AI fluency is becoming the new English. Traditional hard skills in management – such as manually creating complex Excel models – will lose value if an LLM can do this in seconds. The “rock star” of the future will be the one who masters the orchestration of AI tools. Your ability to set precise prompts and verify results will become more important than memorizing formulas.
But here comes the crucial appeal to organizations: Innovation needs security. Currently, many young talents use private accounts or workarounds (“shadow IT”) to be fast. This is a security risk.
Companies must now invest in enterprise licenses (such as ChatGPT Enterprise or Google Gemini for Workspace) in order to:
- Ensuredata protection (no training on company data).
- Make the innovative power of Young Leaders scalable.
- Provide all employees with the same power tools.
Conclusion: AI may not be the only career accelerator, but it is definitely the strongest lever we currently have. If you don’t invest now – both in skills and licenses – you will be overrun by the competition. So what are you waiting for?
Become the CEO of your own productivity
The Google study is not just a wake-up call, but a starting signal. Don’t wait for the official “go” from the top – the real game changers are building their own solutions today.
It doesn’t matter whether you are 25 or 45: from now on, your relevance in the company no longer depends on years of service, but on your adaptability. Use the methods of young leaders to reduce bureaucracy and create space for real strategy.
Here are the essential takeaways from the workflows of the new generation:
- Speed over Perfection: use AI for the first draft (the 80% solution) and invest your energy in polishing instead of losing precious hours in front of the blank page.
- Co-pilot standard: Don’t see AI as a mere recipient of orders, but as a strategic sparring partner that critically scrutinizes your concepts (“red teaming”).
- Skill symbiosis: Break down silos. Let juniors show you how they use tech (“reverse mentoring”) and give them strategic context in return.
Your next steps for today:
- Immediately identify an administrative process (e.g. logs or email drafts) that you will delegate entirely to AI starting tomorrow.
- Approach a younger colleague and ask the question: “Which AI tool do you use privately that I should know about at work?”
- Use the “devil’s advocate” prompt from this article before your next pitch.
The future doesn’t belong to those who work the hardest, but to those who scale the smartest.
Make AI your unfair advantage.
