The Behavioral Consequences of Artificial Intelligence at Work: Rethinking Jobs, Skills, and Organizations

We review recent research on the trio of artificial intelligence (AI) practices—electronic platforms, machine learning, and large language models—and their effects on those who use and work with them. Because these tools take over specific tasks from existing jobs, the important effects are how the remaining work changes and how workers react to it. Perhaps our main conclusion is that choices as to how they are used are the most important factor in their effects on those who use them. For example, do they take over boring tasks like note-taking or interesting ones like drafting reports? Do workers spend their saved time checking AI output or taking on new tasks? We describe the wide variety of outcomes and emerging issues such as the ability of chatbots to show empathy, the ability to codify what had been tacit human knowledge, and the development of digital twins, which predict responses from specific individuals.