A survey by the Upwork Research Institute, a job-search arm of the talent-finding platform Upwork, found that while bosses expect artificial intelligence software to improve productivity, workers say the tool is having the opposite effect.
The survey drew responses from 2,500 workers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. Half of the respondents were C-suite executives, a quarter were full-time employees and the rest were freelancers. Respondents represented a range of ages and genders, but all were high school graduates and were required to use a computer at least “occasionally” in their jobs.
Survey findings also include that executives are demanding more from their employees, with 81% of the 1,250 survey respondents acknowledging that.
Managers are encouraging employees to use AI tools to increase productivity (37%), expand their skill sets (35%), take on broader responsibilities (30%), return to the office (27%), work more efficiently (26%), and work more hours (20%).
Management's push to increase productivity has left employees unable to cope and leading to burnout.
According to the survey, “71% report feeling burned out and nearly two-thirds (65%) report struggling with increased demands from their employers. Shockingly, one in three employees say they are likely to leave their job in the next six months because they are burned out or overworked.”
Employees are as optimistic about AI as their executives, with 65% predicting machine learning will improve their productivity, but there is a gap between belief and reality.
Nearly 47% of workers who use AI tools say they don't know how to achieve the productivity gains they expect, and more than three in four workers (77%) say AI tools have decreased their productivity and increased their workload.
Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents said they are spending more time reviewing and moderating AI-generated content, 23% said they are spending time learning how to use AI tools, and 21% said they are being asked to do more.
“40% of employees believe their companies ask too much of them when it comes to AI,” the institute's survey summary states.
The report also places blame on executives for overestimating employee readiness to adopt AI tools: 37% of C-suite executives at companies adopting AI rated their employees as proficient and comfortable using AI tools, while only 17% of employees shared the same opinion.
Interestingly, while 96 percent of executives believe AI tools will improve productivity, only 26 percent have an AI training program running at their workplace, and only 13 percent say they have a “well-implemented AI strategy.” In the boardroom, AI seems to encourage magical thinking.
Meanwhile, on the ground, 38% of employees said they feel overwhelmed by the demands of using AI in the workplace.
The Upwork report suggests that AI won't simply improve productivity — rather, organizations need to understand the technology and develop processes that allow employees to benefit.
“Our research shows that applying new technologies to outdated work models and systems is not unlocking the full value promise of AI productivity,” Kelly Monahan, managing director of the Upwork Institute, said in a statement. “AI can certainly deliver both greater productivity and happier employees, but it will require fundamental changes to how we organize talent and work.”
The institute, which coincidentally is part of freelance worker hiring platform Upwork, suggests that hiring freelance workers could help: “Compared to full-time employees, more freelancers claim to be AI-enabled,” the report claims.
If a freelancer burns out, there's always a new one to replace them.®
