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Bill Gates predicted that the use of AI in the workplace could lead to a three-day work week during an appearance on Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast last November. While this may sound speculative, Gates might have been onto something.
Gates explained his prediction in part with the common explanation that AI will take away employee drudge work and leave the high-level work to the humans. But that transformation is already happening, as three recent studies have shown.
We dug into the data and spoke to leaders in the field to get their perspective on this issue.
Survey Says ...
Numerous survies have been conducted on the power of AI over the past year, particularly since the commercialization of generative AI. Among them, we noted:
- A Leapsome survey of 2,500 full-time professionals across the tech and consulting sectors found that one in four employees in the US is already using AI for work daily, and 83% of them say doing so has improved their productivity.
- Another study, conducted by Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found AI boosts performance. According to Mollick’s results, consultants who use AI on average completed tasks 25.1% more quickly and produced 40% higher quality results than those not using AI.
- A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that AI can improve contact center employees’ performance by 14% on average — noting that the percentage increases for new employees.
The logic behind those results — and many others — is simple: Jobs encompass a mix of tasks and activities that demand various skills. Some tasks are integral to the role, while others are less critical. If AI automates tasks that are minor or less crucial, it creates efficiencies, explained Alex Swartsel, managing director of insights at Jobs for the Future (JFF).
“It wouldn’t surprise me if, newly able to set more trivial work aside, human brains are actually much better equipped to spend more time with high-level work, with appropriate breaks, because we aren’t constantly being distracted,” she said.
Still, it’s also important to consider the other side of the coin: When AI affects “core” job tasks, it has the potential to reshape a worker’s role and priorities entirely. This distinction is crucial in understanding how AI will influence the nature of work, Swartsel said.
“If AI can do a task better, faster, cheaper, and if that task is a major component of the job, then it has bigger implications than if the task is only a minor part of the job,” she said.
The introduction of AI into the workflow raises several existential questions. Among them: What does it mean to have a job; will AI make your job better or worse; and if AI allows you to condense five days of work into three, will you be paid less?
“If we can automate some of the work and do it in three days, then maybe the job is redefined,” Swartsel said.
Related Article: Report Reveals Workers Most ‘Exposed’ to AI
Rethinking Jobs for the AI Era
AI will likely put pressure on organizations to rethink how they operate, define jobs and invest in resources to get the work done. But for AI to reduce the actual number of days employees work in a week, companies will also need to think differently about pay structures and job descriptions.
“An organization could say we need less people, or it could provide more work-life balance where employees are more creative, happier and motivated by the work they do,” said Jasmijn Bol, the Francis Martin Chair in Business at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business in New Orleans.
But that reframing of jobs requires significant shifts within the organization itself. For instance, if AI does lead to a shorter workweek, organizations will need to adjust their management, accounting and control systems, and think differently about job descriptions, incentives and pay structures.
“You can't change how people work, and then let everything else that was linked to the earlier way of working stay the same,” Bol said, noting that maybe instead of paying for time, organizations will begin paying employees for their output, as an example.
Imagine a scenario where customer service representatives are compensated based on the number of clients they assist. If the organization introduces an AI system to handle orders and answer queries, the role of these employees shifts from directly assisting numerous clients to overseeing the AI process. It would no longer make sense to compensate these employees based on client interaction; instead it would be more appropriate to align compensation with the overall success and efficiency of the AI-managed process because it better reflects the evolved nature of the employees’ responsibilities, Bol explained.
If AI succeeds in creating a more productive workforce, companies will find it difficult to stay tethered to a traditional 40-hour workweek, said Debbi Roberts, head of product at Quickbase, a Boston-based software company, who believes companies are more likely to instead measure performance based on productivity and results.
AI could also open the door to more flexible scheduling. Rather than a traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday construct, a workday could be split in two shifts, morning and evening for instance, or focused on the times when an employee can be most productive, Roberts said.
Related Article: AI Workplace Fears Are Taking a Toll. Here's What You Can Do
Leading the Change
One common finding across most surveys is the impact of AI is relative to the nature of the task at hand. For instance, in one of its studies, JFF looked at five industries — healthcare, manufacturing, computer science, retail and transportation and logistics — and found that some important job responsibilities will be displaced by AI while others will be elevated by AI.
“There are some built-in resiliencies in the way jobs are defined right now that will create real opportunities for jobs to capitalize on the introduction of AI,” Swartsel said.
JFF’s report suggests company leaders play a crucial role in all of this, mainly by ensuring employees are prepared to either use AI or adapt to the impact it will have on their jobs. Training, upskilling and reskilling are all central elements of a people-first AI strategy, as is communicating clearly how some job responsibilities will be redefined.
Take, for example, a software developer: if testing is 80% of the person’s role and AI is expected to reduce that proportion to 20%, the employer needs to help this person redefine their role and determine how the extra time will be used, Swartsel said.
Jobs may need to be deconstructed to allow for certain parts to take advantage of AI, Swartsel continued. For instance, most people probably wouldn’t expect AI to help a truck driver do his job, but as autonomous vehicles become more accepted, the role of a truck driver might be reimagined in a way that takes advantage of the employee’s human skills so there is more customer engagement and less pure driving, she said. The idea is to rethink the role of human workers, she said.
Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of GenAI-focused company Aisera, agreed that 10 years from now, software developers will have different responsibilities. “The first line of code won’t be written by humans because they’re not great at writing code that will be cybersecurity protected,” he said.
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Of course, these types of changes won’t happen overnight. They will take time, as companies adjust and employees reskill. “The changes could be relatively minor at first, but this also allows the worker to evolve with the role,” she said.
Related Article: Generative AI Could Make the Workplace More Equitable — or It Could Be a Disaster. It’s Up to Us
Changes Are Coming
Some of the changes noted here are happening on an incremental level, and more substantial changes that could lead to larger productivity gains remain further out, Bol said. But much of what happens next depends on the pace and the way AI is adopted by each industry, Swartsel said, as well as on leaders’ willingness to create new opportunities for their employees by allowing them to experiment with incorporating AI into their workflow.
Through it all, employees will require guidelines on how to use — and not use — AI, Roberts said. It is a leader’s job to help employees understand the role and limitations of AI and where humans add value to the process, such as using critical thinking skills to check the AI’s output for accuracy.
“We, as humans, have a role with AI, and it’s a partnership with this technology where it helps us, but we have to make sure it’s accurate,” she said.
The adoption of AI in the workforce will also allow companies to define what is uniquely human work, Swartsel said. “What is the work that is so important that it should be reserved for humans?”
Rather than worrying about a bot taking your job, Bol said employees should be more concerned about losing their job to another human who embraces AI and uses it to eliminate grunt work.
“AI is a tool and throughout humanity, we've had a lot of tools that have freed up time,” she said. The key, she said, is evolving and adapting alongside those tools to make sure we don’t become obsolete. “If you’re still calculating everything in your head because you refuse to use a calculator, you're not going to be the most productive employee,” she said.
