40% of AI productivity gains lost to rework for errors
“I’d recommend leaders watch for spots where work starts bouncing back and forth for edits, multiple reviews, or manual fixes, especially from their strongest employees. If speed is up but AI-generated mistakes, revisions, or frustration are also climbing, that may be a sign AI is adding friction instead of value,” says Kareem Osman, VP and market director of technology talent solutions at Robert Half.
Engaged employees
Those most eager to adopt AI are the employees suffering the burden of AI-related rework, Workday found, with 77% of daily users saying they “audit AI work with the same or more rigor than human work.” The bulk of this added labor creates an additional 1.5 weeks of time “lost to fixing AI outputs per highly engaged employee, per year.”
“A company’s strongest employees often become the safety net — they’re the ones catching mistakes, fixing issues, and making sure things don’t slip through the cracks. Over time, that can feel less like high-impact work and more like constant cleanup, which is unsustainable long term,” Farnsworth says.
