Workers in the U.S. who use artificial intelligence (AI) regularly in their job are seeing benefits like working more quickly or creatively, though a new study finds that those gains aren’t evenly distributed across the workforce.
The American Job Quality Study, produced by Gallup, Jobs for the Future and The Families & Workers Fund from January through March, found that the majority of workers who have used AI in their job said it helps them do their jobs faster (63%), as well as to find more creative solutions to work tasks (56%).
Nearly half of respondents said it allows them to spend more time on the most interesting parts of their job (47%) or helps produce higher-quality work (46%).
However, the study also found that the benefits of using AI haven’t been shared equally among workers, as workers with higher levels of educational attainment and those in managerial roles used it more than workers in other roles.
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The American Job Quality Study found that college graduates were more than twice as likely as those without a degree to use AI on a daily or weekly basis, 40% to 17%, while 37% of managers and 25% of individual workers are regular AI users.
Molly Blankenship, associate vice president of strategy and impact at Jobs for the Future, helped lead the American Job Quality Study and told FOX Business that while workers are already reporting the benefits of using AI at work, those benefits “are not being shared evenly, they’re not reaching all workers.”
Blankenship noted the findings that college graduates were much more likely to use AI daily or weekly and added that those figures track with what they’re seeing in terms of job quality across the U.S. workforce, as “college graduates are much more likely” to hold quality jobs than peers without degrees.
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“We find in our research that people in higher-quality jobs are more likely to be satisfied at work, are less likely to have intentions to leave, and we’re seeing strong correlations between people who are using AI and who are already in quality jobs,” she said.
“If we’ve got people who are more satisfied, more able to complete their tasks, more able to focus on the interesting parts, etc., then that’s a good and a thing we need to promote and make as widely accessible as possible,” Blankenship said. “What we’re seeing in our data is that those benefits are not being shared widely, and some people aren’t getting to reap the spoils of being as satisfied or engaged.”
Across the workforce, the data showed that workers who used AI more frequently at work were also far more likely to report seeing it benefit their work, with 79% of regular users reporting it helped them complete tasks faster compared with 37% of irregular users.
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Regular users were also more likely to report AI helping with creative solutions than irregular users (67% to 39%), producing higher-quality work (59% to 26%) and being able to focus on more interesting parts of their job (61% to 27%).
“The main benefits that people are reporting AI having for them in the workplace is the ability to do their work faster, get done and get through work faster,” Blankenship said.
She added that it allows them to “produce higher quality work even as they’re moving faster, find more creative solutions to the problems that they’re facing at work, and to focus on the more interesting parts of their job while letting AI support them in getting through more rote tasks.”
“I think this data shows us there are a lot of people out there who are already experiencing some benefits from AI and their work. That’s great. How do we make sure as we go forward that we really have an eye toward making sure that everyone gets to reap those benefits and that it can improve the work experience in America overall,” Blankenship said.
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