Can AI boost employee productivity in the workplace?

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools like chatbots have shown to boost employee productivity at a tech company by 14%, with 35% more progress shown from novice and low-skilled employees.

This is according to a new study conducted by Stanford and MIT, which examined real-world application of generative AI on more than 5,000 customer support agents, based primarily in the Philippines, at a Fortune 500 enterprise software firm over the course of a year.

The study showed that employees with less job experience who used AI  performed as well or better than employees with more job experience who did not use AI, showing that it was beneficial as a tool for new employees. “Less experienced workers benefit from AI by taking its recommendations to get up to speed and learn skillsets that usually come with experience,” said Lindsey Raymond, an MIT Ph.D. candidate and co-author of the paper, who concluded that the technology would help workers more effectively multitask and handle more complicated questions faster.

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AI assistance was also crucial in improving customer service, with better and faster work leading to happier customers, reduced requests for managerial intervention, and improved employee retention, reported Bloomberg.

Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Digital Economy Lab at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and co-author of the report, added, “Workers who embrace the technology, play around with it and learn how to use it are the ones that are going to succeed and benefit the most. I don’t think the generative AI is going to replace workers, but workers who work with generative AI will replace those who don’t.”