Looking at AI’s impact on work quality

Does AI bring better results? And if so, is it with or without our help? What are the pros and cons of using AI? Let’s dive into all this—and more.

Agence Presse: Global Entrepreneur Week – 5 WeWork member entrepreneurs share their winning strategies

AI is here to stay—no doubt about that. The real question is, what should we expect from artificial intelligence? How does AI affect the workplace? Do all these incredible technologies bring better results, really? And if they do, what is the cost of that? Let’s find out.

What is AI?

According to IBM, artificial intelligence is the technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. In other words, AI imitates our brains and speeds through some of the patterns our brains use to access and sort information. Think generative AI tools such as Chat GPT or digital assistants like Siri and Alexa. These tools and assistants have built-in data that they can pull from on demand, as well as a unique algorithm that enables that pull.

17 St Helens Pl Kitchen Area

It’s important to point out that we’ve known digital assistants for a while now. We even have movies about them. Asking Google about the weather while browsing through our closet is more practical than sitting down to look it up ourselves. Similarly, turning on the GPS is a complete game-changer compared to looking at a physical map. Generative AI, however, is a different story. This kind of technology can learn and produce complex information such as visual content and software code—things that used to be human-dependent. That begs the question, how will AI affect jobs? Or even more urgently…

Is AI taking over our jobs?

Not really. While AI is impressive in its generative capabilities, it is yet to create the kind of content humans can create—that is, technology is yet to be independent, or at least independent enough to take over human jobs. AI has the data to mix and match, but the result is often faulty, sometimes unethical, and not very appealing to its human audience. Left to its own devices, AI cannot generate quality. Given human help, though, can it improve quality?

WeWork Dock 72 Brand Photoshoot

How is AI impacting work quality?

We saw generative AI rise in 2023, while in 2024, companies are already employing it to help increase quality and productivity. While artificial intelligence has many positive and negative effects, its impact on work quality is generally good, offering cost-effective and time-saving solutions. 

According to Synthesia, marketers save 3 hours per piece of content and 2.5 hours per day with AI tools. As for performance, 43% of small businesses who use AI content say their SEO performance has moderately increased. Also, we learn from Salesforce that 7 in 10 marketers expect generative AI to help with menial tasks in such a way as to allow them to focus more on strategic work. These are but a few of the many statistics we have on AI, all of which point in the same direction: using AI in the workplace can help us save time and focus on work we deem more important. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages we can expect from artificial intelligence at work.

Private Office Brand photoshoot

AI in the workplace, the Pros

  1. Automation where you need it

One of AI’s top positive impacts is how it frees us from menial, repetitive tasks. If your job traditionally requires data entry or form filling, AI can likely handle that for you. Now, instead of spending time gathering and entering data, you can focus on interpreting, filtering, and handling the more complex (and fun) side of your job. That’s just one example of how automation helps us—and why it’s so popular for businesses seeking to increase productivity

  1. Taking care of the basics, at great speed

Say you are an experienced copywriter. You have a big project coming up, but you need to wrap up some basic, short-form content first. Your mind simply isn’t there, so to get the creative juices flowing, you ask Chat GPT for Perplexity for help. The solution isn’t perfect—you’ll have to check if not edit the text, but the time it takes you to get it done is significantly shorter. While this is a specific scenario, it can apply to any line of work. You might not need ready-to-go content but a quick, up-to-date pile of information to go off on. AI can help give you a start or a direction, saving you precious time. 

  1. Complex data made easy

Anyone working with data will know—it may look easy, but it’s not. We already established AI can help gather data, but it can also help us understand it, giving us insights we would otherwise struggle to obtain on our own. Let’s see an example: if you are a business owner looking into SEO analytics, AI can show you what you need to know with only a few clicks and at incredible speeds. Of course, you’ll need to understand the terminology, but that’s a small price to pay for such valuable information

17 St Helens Place Common Area

AI in the workplace, the Cons

  1. The dark side of automation

People fear the negative impact of artificial intelligence on employment, and rightly so. Given its automation capabilities, AI may render certain jobs obsolete while dramatically changing others. Some believe AI will lead to an employment crisis, while others have a sunnier view of it—namely, that AI will create new jobs and ways of working. It’s still too early to say which scenario, if either, is more likely. However, we must be aware that while helpful, automation also carries a dark side. 

  1. Endangering creativity

Remember the copywriter example? That represents a mild use of generative AI. While you can ask Chat GPT to write short-form content that you can edit later, you can also request anything from academic papers to Picasso-inspired digital art. For the untrained eye, the results may seem just right, and using AI instead of hiring an artist may get very tempting. In that way, AI puts creativity, originality, and, subsequently, quality in danger, for we must remember that technology can’t produce quality results in terms of art. That leads us to the next problem. The ethical dilemma.

Since AI doesn’t produce original work but puts it together by pulling from its data pool, the ethical dimension of [any] given result is foggy, to say the least. According to McKinsey, companies put themselves at risk of inaccuracy and intellectual property infringement—increasingly so in 2024. Thus, we must point out that AI’s negative impacts can reflect not only on the quality of work but on the credibility of a company, too. Also, while it reduces costs in terms of workforce, it may also produce unexpected costs when used inappropriately.

123

Final thoughts

Like any new workplace technology, AI is both scary and exciting. Research covers both the positive and the negative effects of artificial intelligence, concluding that it typically helps generate good results. However, statistics also point out potential dangers, warning against misusing AI’s generative capabilities. The key takeaway is that we can successfully resort to AI as long as we know its limitations, and for that, we must keep up to date with its developments.

Was this article useful?
Category
Research Studies