AI helps companies transition to a four-day workweek

After Roger Kirkness founded his company Convictional in January to help other remote and hybrid companies achieve their goals, his team began accelerating their work by outsourcing more and more time-consuming tasks to artificial intelligence. As workers in the U.S. and Canada face burnout from having to make decisions more quickly, the company decided to give workers a four-day work week so they can reap the benefits of automation.

“I was surprised that we were able to accomplish the same amount,” said Kirkness, who works in Waterloo, Canada. “People are a lot happier.”

While more US employers are requiring employees to return to the office five days a week, some companies are claiming that AI can save them enough time to start or maintain a four-day work week. As workers, especially younger workers, continue to push for work-life balance, more companies may move toward shorter work weeks, executives and researchers predict.

Juliet Scholl, an economist and sociologist at Boston University who studies the issue, said AI has the potential to “significantly reduce the workforce and lead to an evolutionary shift for companies to a four-day work week.” “There's a good social consensus that people are tired and stressed.”

Although the adoption of AI in the workplace is still in its early stages, new research data shows that its use is gradually increasing. According to a recent Gallup poll, about 45% of U.S. employees in the third quarter said they use AI in the workplace at least a few times a year, an increase of 5 points from the previous quarter. Still, only 10% of people use it every day, an increase of 2 percentage points over the same period.

Some companies, especially those with a lot of work from home, have delegated many tasks to AI to adjust the rhythm of work.

According to Kirkness, employees with conviction are using AI for things like coding, writing marketing copy and breaking down projects. As a result, employees are delegating tasks, he added. Prentice Bjerkeseth, a product engineer at Convictional, said he and his teammates primarily use Claude Code, Anthropic's coding assistant, and the AI ​​capabilities built into the company's software for meetings, email, and document creation. Changes brought about by AI will require them to be more creative in their work, he said.

“We all have times when we feel exhausted and banging our heads against the wall,” he says, adding that rest is often the answer. “When you have extra time off, you get more done.”

At New York-based design and strategy firm RocketAir, internally developed AI tools help strategists and designers contextualize large amounts of data from clients to create new digital products for brands, said founder and CEO Taylor Rosenbauer. For the past three years, the company has adopted a four-day work week, with employees working on two weeks of intensive work with tight deadlines.

“There was always pressure to deliver as much value as possible,” Rosenbauer said, adding that AI will help the company reach its goals on a compressed schedule.

Scholl said small businesses often adopt shorter work weeks to compete with higher salaries to attract new hires and increase retention.

That's how we thought about our strategy at Peak PEO, a London-based service that helps companies expand globally with teams in different locations.

In February 2023, Peak PEO launched “Ultra Flexible Fridays,” allowing its team of 20 people to choose how they want to spend their day, as their industry exploded during the pandemic. This later evolved into a four-day week. CEO Alex Voakes said the number of job openings that previously had two applications jumped to 350 after the change.

At the same time, the company was using AI to perform repetitive tasks such as creating invoices and documents, and to help sales teams process data to find new leads. Vokes said it became clear that while shorter work weeks and AI efforts are separate, they complement each other.

“This is like the perfect blend of automation, employee engagement and people's pride in their work,” Vokes said, adding that employees have found purpose in their free time by becoming more involved in the community and starting artistic projects.

This approach can be more difficult for law firms, as lawyers may be concerned about reducing their billable hours. But leaders at the Ross firm, based in Ontario, Canada, felt they had no choice but to change, as 48 of the firm's 50 staff and lawyers are women, juggling caregiving, education and home responsibilities during the pandemic. In April 2020, the firm adopted a rotation system that gives employees the time they need to handle family responsibilities without impacting their pay, said managing partner Quinn Ross. Ross said the company moved to a four-day, eight-hour work week in June 2020 as productivity and happiness soared.

The company was already using older AI tools for automated document and email management. But the company says that generative AI allows employees to conduct investigations faster using ChatGPT Pro, and automate processes such as tracking billable hours, summarizing calls, and planning next steps for customers.

However, the transition to a four-day work week does not come without challenges. Leaders say one of the biggest challenges is educating teams on how to use AI, given the need to keep some data private and the potential for bots to introduce errors. Employees may struggle with the transition, and as models are frequently updated, companies may need to change their strategies.

Still, big companies are paying attention. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said at a business forum last month that AI will shorten the work week to three and a half days over the next 20, 30 or even 40 years. He also suggested that employers like his that have a five-day attendance policy may have to retrain, redeploy employees or offer early retirement as a result.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggested this year that the work week could shrink even faster. “Over the next 10 years, AI will [intelligence] It's going to be free and commonplace,” he said on “The Tonight Show.” “What about work? Should I work two or three days a week?”

Joe O'Connor, co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based research firm Worktime Revolution, said the current economic climate may deter some companies from implementing a four-day work week, but he expects that to change in the coming years. Companies that save time with AI will have to choose between “providing the same thing at a lower cost or investing in their workforce to deliver more value,” he said.

Companies that have introduced four-day weekends say that, ironically, AI is helping them strive for a more human environment.

The Roth company says it is impossible to reverse the current plan.

These are “golden handcuffs that we are happy to wear,” Ross said.