Information workers, white collar employees, knowledge staff members, “fake email jobs” — regardless of what you call this class of employee, they sit at desks all day on their desktop computers. And they’re the big target for AI proponents, many of whom boast that they’ll be able to replace the vast majority with automated, machine-learning bots.
Can AI really replace white collar work? Maybe 14% of it. That’s the number of daily chores that information workers say they’re able to use AI tools to get done, according to a new report.
That’s not a lot, and executives expect much more, which is leaving white collar workers to strain under extra expectations that are ballooning their workloads overall.
White Collar Workloads Are Up 31% Year Over Year
The work management platform Wrike just released its 2024 Impactful Work Report, using a survey covering 1,000 business leaders and 2,500 information workers in order to check in on how their workloads have changed across the past year.
The big news? Information workers are doing a lot more work overall, but a lot of the increases are low impact or “busy” work. Specifically, information workers report a 31% increase in their workloads over the past year, while the business leaders surveyed put their teams’ workload increase at 46%.
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However, information workers say just 54% of their work is “high impact,” and less than two-thirds of workers say they are happy in their role.
How Does AI Factor In?
The disconnect between workers and business leaders is clear when to comes to the impact of AI across the last year.
According to the leaders, AI helps with 32% of their workload — in comparison, information workers say it helps with just 14%.
80% of these leaders say AI (and other new tech investments) has boosted productivity, while just 51% of workers surveyed say that AI has boosted their own efficiency.
In other words, everyone agrees that AI can help them. However, the folks at the top have a much rosier picture of how much AI can do — and it’s worth pointing out that those leaders are a lot more likely to be making the decisions surrounding who is hired on or laid off.
Did Executives Invest Too Much Trust in AI’s Functionality?
There’s no denying the impact that AI hype has already left on the job market. A full half of CEOs polled in one study earlier this year said they might replace jobs at their company with AI. Some tech giants — Dell is the latest — are citing AI as one reason behind their latest round of layoffs.
Granted, other factors are no doubt contributing to a poor job market. Mass layoffs are plaguing white collar workers everywhere, while executives’ efforts to push for RTO mandates are triggering further job migrations.
AI tools are undoubtedly here to stay and can streamline plenty of jobs to a certain extent. However, as the latest studies indicate, we still haven’t proven that AI can fully live up to its industry-reshaping hype.
