3 studies give a window on how AI is to reshape the workforce

Chatgpt has been presented to the world for more than two years – and the workplace is still trying to adapt to AI.

A large -scale experience in the field and two surveys published or conducted last month give indications on how AI is to reshape the work.

Although AI has shown signs of helping gaps and improving collaboration, data suggests that some workers are skeptical and cautious – especially when the advice on how to use AI are limited or unclear.

Here is what the researchers have found.

AI can be a useful teammate

Workers using AI have performed human teams for two people, and Ai-increase teams were much more likely to produce high-level solutions, a working document suggested.

In a pre-recorded and randomized randomized and randomized controlled trial involving 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, researchers from Harvard, Wharton, and the digital data design institute attributed participants to carry out product development tasks in the real world. They included the generation of packaging ideas and the proposal of retail strategies, with or without the help of GPT-4 or GPT-4O.

Participants were randomly placed in one of the four groups: working solo or teams, and with or without AI access. The study measured the quality of the solution, the completion time of tasks and the emotional response.

Individuals using AI have carried out as well as human teams working without AI, according to the study, and the AI ​​assisted teams worked best and were more likely to generate 10% of the highest solutions than those working alone.

Ethan Mollick, professor at Upenn’s Wharton School and one of the newspaper authors, said in a March blog article, the results suggest that “AI sometimes works more as a teammate than a tool” and that it should make companies think about technology differently.

He said that companies should rethink the way they structure teams, form workers and affect interfunctional tasks.

The study also revealed that when it has access to AI, employees with less experience in product development have carried out levels comparable to veteran teams, which suggests that technology can help fill functional knowledge shortcomings.

Working with AI has improved the emotional experience of work, suggested the study. Participants using AI reported higher levels of excitation, energy and enthusiasm and levels of concern and lower frustration compared to those who work without it.

In some cases, individuals working with AI had more positive emotional responses than those working in human teams.

Although the experience involved only one working day, the document is still a work project and has not yet been evaluated by peers. The researchers recognize the warnings: the study involved only small teams participating in a single day of tasks and was based on GPT-4 models.

Most workers of generation Z say they lack advice on AI

Even as digital indigenous, most workers of the Z generation navigate the AI ​​at work without clear guidance, suggested a March investigation in Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation.

More than half of workers in generation Z – 55% – said their employers had no official Policy on the use of AI. And among those whose workplaces have rules, only about one in 10 describe these policies as “extremely clear”.

Gallup’s web survey of 3,465 Americans aged 13 to 28 in the 50 American states said that students and employees of generation Z in environments with clear directives in AI are more likely to use an AI regularly than their peers.

At the same time, many young workers are skeptical about the quality of the work generated by AI. Almost two thirds of respondents of generation Z said they would be more likely to trust the work produced by humans in relation to the work done or assisted by AI.

The results paint a table in conflict of the way in which the generation Z as a whole perceives the impact of the AI ​​on their critical thinking in relation to their efficiency at work or at the school. Almost half – 49% – of the Zers generation thought that AI would harm their critical thinking capacity, while only 22% said they thought it would help.

However, many have reported practical advantages, with 72% saying that AI can help them find information more easily and 66% saying that it can help them work faster.

Software engineers are divided on AI

Coding of atmospheres – using AI to create software using prompts – shakes the development of software. However, not all software engineers seem on board with the movement.

In a wired survey of 730 software engineers published in March, three in four developers said they had tried AI tools like Chatgpt, and most of them said they used AI at least every week.

But enthusiasm varied. Almost 40% identified as “AI pessimists”, while just over a third said they were optimists. The coders in mid-carrier were the most skeptical group, with almost half saying that they were pessimistic about the impact of the AI.

Meanwhile, developers at the start of their career seemed more optimistic. Three -quarters of the engineers who have been coding for less than a year said that they were OIA optimists. And near one in three veterans code (with more than 20 years of experience) said they had already integrated AI into their workflows.

But not all adoptions are outdoors. About 4% of full -time programmers said they used AI at work without saying their employer.

This discomfort could reflect wider concerns on the job market. Indeed, the job offers for American software engineer are falling a third against five years ago.