AI-enhanced productivity gains are uneven and uncertain
No Jitter Brief:
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Microsoft’s fifth annual Future of Work report was released last week, with research centering on the impact AI has on the workforce. Among the findings: 40% of employees surveyed said they had received “workslop,” which Microsoft defined as “AI-generated content that looks polished but isn’t accurate or useful.”
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An analysis of Copilot logs looked at the work activities associated with users’ goals and the AI actions and found that Microsoft Copilot users saved an average of 13.7 minutes in creating new drafts and 10.7 minutes in editing content.
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Finally, the report noted “AI has been more successful at improving productivity at the individual scale than at the team scale.” Researchers cite possible factors for this: AIs having relatively limited knowledge of critical social dynamics (interpersonal), grounding and greater complexity of team goals versus individual goals.
No Jitter Insight:
Generative AI’s early appeal was rooted in improving worker productivity. The findings in this year’s Future of Work report show gains in individual productivity, but not in team-based collaboration. The report also logged strong negative sentiment toward people who use AI: “People who use AI assistance expect to be, and often are, evaluated as ‘lazier,’ less competent, less diligent, less trustworthy and less moral.”
Additionally, research is demonstrating that workers aren’t convinced of improved productivity across the board. SAP-owned company WalkMe released its fifth annual State of Digital Adoption report on April, 9, and its researchers found more than half (54%) of workers skipped over AI tools to complete their work manually, and another 33% aren’t using AI at all.
The report also logged two other notable findings: a persistent sentiment gap between executives’ perceptions of AI’s impact on productivity compared to the teams they manage, and a time sink linked to digital tools and their complications. In the State of Digital Adoption report, 81% of executives said they significantly improved productivity through AI, while the amount of time workers lost to technology friction shot up 42% year over year to 51 working days per year.
As the report noted, “The rapid deployment of AI tools has driven wasted time to a three-year high. Despite a 38% increase in digital investment from last year, 40% of that spend underperforms.”
