The Proof Is in the Eating: Lessons Learnt from One Year of Generative AI Adoption in a Science-for-Policy Organisation

This paper presents the key results of a large-scale empirical study on the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science-for-policy department. Since spring 2023, the JRC has developed and deployed GPT@JRC, a platform providing safe and compliant access to state-of-the-art Large Language Models for over 10,000 knowledge workers. While the literature highlighting the potential of GenAI to enhance productivity for knowledge-intensive tasks is abundant, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence on impactful use case types and success factors. This study addresses this gap and proposes the JRC GenAI Compass conceptual framework based on the lessons learnt from the JRC’s GenAI adoption journey. It includes the concept of AI-IQ, which reflects the complexity of a given GenAI system. This paper thus draws on a case study of enterprise-scale AI implementation in European public institutions to provide approaches to harness GenAI’s potential while mitigating the risks.