This year has witnessed a significant leap forward in the development of AI, causing many workers to experience anxiety and concerns about being replaced. In reality, AI doesn't replace jobs; it replaces tasks. Based on current observations, the impact of AI varies across industries. The development of AI is a double-edged sword. If tasks closely align with what AI can perform, workers should be concerned about the potential impact. Conversely, AI can function as a complementary tool, enhancing worker productivity.
We've observed a substantial increase in the output of textual content creators, with numerous blogs and marketing copies increasing rapidly online. For pure text-based roles, such as social media editors who could initially post only one article per day, AI assistance has boosted their capacity to publish three articles a day. Additionally, AI tools can be employed to detect external trends, enriching content. AI has accelerated the pace at which workers produce content.
How can AI be applied in daily work? This is a crucial question that workers need to contemplate on an individual, team, and even organizational level. Therefore, researching daily workflow is essential. While AI can accelerate certain aspects of tasks, it can also slow down some processes. Clearly, AI is not a panacea. As AI becomes a standard feature in the workplace, much like a language or skill, workers may not need to understand the intricacies of AI's operations but must grasp how to effectively utilize it.
In July of this year, Nielsen Norman Group released a report titled "AI Improves Employee Productivity by 66%," outlining the three areas where generative AI has the deepest impact on productivity. Initially, in the realm of customer service, there was speculation about the potential displacement of human agents with the progress in chatbots, given their conversational prowess. However, this scenario did not unfold as anticipated. The critical need for precise information in customer responses, especially when handling complaints with the utmost care and emotional intelligence, makes the application of ChatGPT in these detailed processes unpredictable. Despite the impressive capabilities of chatbots, encompassing a vast knowledge base, their handling of tasks based on specific instructions introduces a certain level of uncertainty. Consequently, there is hesitancy in deploying ChatGPT in customer service, as organizations are cautious not to offend customers. Therefore, progress in the customer service domain has been relatively limited, with ongoing efforts to establish guidelines for the use of chatbots.
The second notable area of productivity enhancement lies in content generation, experiencing a significant increase of over 50%. In March of this year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a paper titled "Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence," quantifying the impact of generative AI on content generation tasks. In an era where digital tools are nearly indispensable, particularly for tasks involving information exchange and content creation such as generating copy, translation, reports, organizing presentations, and meeting notes—tasks that digital professionals engage in almost daily. In the workflow, ChatGPT can assist in ideation and drafting; however, researchers found that for editing, it may consume more of the worker's time. Faced with a lengthy report, a worker might prefer rewriting it entirely, as editing could be a lengthier process.
Research has determined that ChatGPT is suitable for providing opinions, generating ideas, and offering frameworks on a broad scale. However, it is more challenging to assist in detailed content writing, which workers must handle themselves. Overall, utilizing ChatGPT can still reduce task processing time. Researchers found that adopting AI tools can increase productivity by 37%, equivalent to reducing approximately 40% of working hours, with an improvement in quality of nearly 20%. This demonstrates that generative AI can optimize both quality and efficiency simultaneously.
In the final analysis of the areas where AI has the most significant impact on productivity, the results indicate that the productivity of software engineers in coding can be enhanced by over 125%. This implies that, whereas software engineers could previously write only one line of code within a given time, with the assistance of AI, they can now produce two to three lines of code. This conclusion has surprised many. However, examining the current industry landscape, Silicon Valley has witnessed layoffs of approximately 500,000 software engineers since the beginning of this year. Tech companies have recognized the value added by AI and have consequently proactively adjusted their workforce allocations. This illustrates a shift from the initial perception that AI would primarily impact non-technical jobs, revealing a contrary outcome.
In summary, the role of AI should be regarded as a crucial tool for enhancing productivity, avoiding complete replacement of a position or overshadowing it. Instead, its purpose is to deconstruct workflows. Therefore, in the era of AI, everyone must understand how to effectively leverage AI within their own work processes to enhance efficiency and value. People need to work and must find meaning in it; AI serves as an assistance tool, never intended to become the leading role.
