A study analyzing the Danish labor market found that Generative AI models are yet to have any significant economic or time-saving effect on workers who use it.
Notably, users only reported an average time saving of about an hour per week, and in many cases, AI created new tasks that had to be completed, offsetting any time that had been saved.
The study comes in the wake of businesses rushing to implement AI agents into their companies. There have even been experiments of teams made entirely of AI agents, though these have been met with dire results. In the end, more research is needed before any conclusions on how AI will shape the labor market can be made.
AI Has Little Impact on Economic Outcomes in the Workplace
A new study from economists at the University of Chicago and the University of Copenhagen has revealed that AI is yet to make a significant impact on worker earnings or hours. Within the study, users reported time savings of just 2.8% of work hours (about one hour a week) on average.
Researchers focused on the impact of AI chatbots across 11 occupations considered vulnerable to automation, such as accountants, software developers, and customer support specialists. This covered 25,000 workers and 7,000 workplaces in Denmark between 2023 and 2024.
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This study comes in response to the rapid acceleration of AI within the workplace, with businesses looking to implement agents to improve productivity. A recent report from Microsoft has also detailed a future for businesses that see AI agents working cohesively within human teams to take on easily automated tasks.
In Fact, AI Could Be Creating More Work
Even though firm-led investment boosted AI tool adoption in recent years — saving time for 64-90% of users in the studied occupations — the researchers reported that the benefits of its usage were less significant than they originally thought.
AI was actually responsible for creating new tasks for workers, 8.4% of them, even for those who didn’t actually use the chatbots themselves. This offset any potential for time saving. One example the researchers gave for this is that now, teachers must spend time trying to see if their students have used ChatGPT to complete any homework.
Notably, the study also found that the benefits of AI chatbots, including time savings and job satisfaction, are 10% to 40% greater when employers encourage their employees to use them. This highlights the importance of an AI-positive company culture as a driver towards success.
How Effective Is AI in the Workplace?
Even when the research concluded that yes, some time had been saved by the workers by using chatbots, only 3-7% of those productivity gains translated into higher earnings.
Previous studies have seen AI increase worker productivity significantly, with one worker noting a 15% increase on average. There are also ways to criticize this new study, as it did only focus on a number of professions, and its findings may even be outdated because of how quickly AI is developing.
Ultimately, more research is needed into whether AI can effectively save time for employees, and whether we will have the labor market transformation some expect is still up for debate.
