Artificial intelligence promises to unlock a new era of business efficiency, bringing obvious productivity gains for employers. However, there are signs the technology could also benefit employees – and even lay the foundations for a four-day working week.
Already, AI has boosted performance in sectors such as software development, marketing and legal services, among others. Recent studies suggest that AI could enable businesses to maintain productivity while reducing employee hours from 40 to 32 hours per week.
For companies, this means doing more with less – less time, fewer resources and potentially lower operational costs. For employees, could the productivity gains make the heralded four-day week a workplace reality?
“The issue is complex because not all jobs or sectors are created equal,” says Geoffrey Hamlyn, chief operating officer (COO) of Trepwise, whose four-day week benefit has contributed to the firm’s “Best Places to Work” designation for the past seven years. “A manual labourer working on an hourly basis is much less able to adapt to a shorter work week than an accountant or a marketing director, for instance. Similarly, a law firm that bills on an hourly basis has very little incentive to reduce expectations for its team members.”
For many companies, however, the downsides of a shortened work week are considerably less daunting – and there are tangible upsides. Numerous studies have shown that employee morale, retention and productivity are positively correlated with the four-day work week. Of the businesses that have adopted a four-day week, 29% cite AI as a key factor in the transition.
Shaping the future of work
AI is increasingly seen as a way to enable a four-day work week without sacrificing productivity. AI can improve worker output by an average of 14% according to a 2023 study by MIT and Stanford, while research from Goldman Sachs suggests that AI could automate up to 25% of tasks currently performed by employees. These gains allow businesses to rethink traditional work structures.
Rosi Bremec, COO of Game Lounge, an affiliate marketing company in the iGaming industry, successfully implemented a four-day work week this summer and says AI was the key to being able to automate certain tasks. “The goal is not to replace people with AI, but to work smarter,” she says. “We’re being cautious about using AI for content creation, especially because we’re focused on organic SEO. However, we’re looking into automating other tasks like taking meeting minutes and creating reports. AI is also used for learning and development, backlog grooming and prioritising tasks for the week. Our efficiency has significantly improved.”
AI’s potential to transform the workplace extends beyond productivity. It can also enhance collaboration and information sharing. AI tools enable employees to find relevant documents quickly, cutting down on time spent searching for information. They can also optimise team formation by pairing individuals with complementary skills, ensuring that remote teams work together more efficiently.
A 2023 report by think-tank Autonomy underscores the transformative potential of AI. According to its findings, AI could reduce working hours by at least 10% for nearly nine in 10 UK workers over the next decade. The study also suggests that up to 28% of employees could transition to a 32-hour work week by 2033, without losing pay. This shift, experts argue, presents an opportunity for policymakers and businesses to rethink how AI can be harnessed for the benefit of workers, not just employers.
Balancing efficiency and job security
AI holds great potential to streamline tasks, but there is still concern that the financial gains may benefit shareholders more than workers. According to Goldman Sachs, AI could disrupt 300 million jobs worldwide. Meanwhile, Harvard Law School highlights the need for protections to prevent worker exploitation in an AI-driven economy. The Harvard report’s recommendations include AI monitoring in workplaces, establishing safety standards and ensuring transparency around the technologies in use.
“Just as Hippocrates implores physicians to ‘first, do not harm’, so too must employers carefully mitigate risks when implementing significant changes to technology or workflow,” says Hamlyn. In the future, AI will reduce the need for human resources, he notes. This reality is already playing out on factory floors, in call centres and in software companies worldwide. As the power of AI grows, so will the risks to human capital.
The inevitable march toward automation will require laws and regulations to ensure fairness
“The inevitable march toward automation will require laws and regulations to ensure fairness,” Hamlyn says. “However, in the absence of policies that dictate how businesses must operate, employers will be required to make difficult decisions that balance the wellbeing of their workforce with the potential for profits.”
The right approach could boost productivity without reducing the need for human employees. As employers gain from AI-driven efficiencies, they face a choice: share those gains with workers or focus solely on cutting costs.
Challenges and concerns
For Game Lounge’s staff, the challenge was how to fit five days of work into four. “Some employees were initially worried about how they could manage everything in just four days, especially since their schedules were already packed,” Bremec says. “I even got pushback from some directors. But once we adjusted, they managed well.”
The trick for Bremec was better planning. “One of the first changes I made was cutting meeting times from an hour to 25 minutes, leaving time for preparation and a buffer if needed,” she explains. And by integrating AI into task-tracking systems to monitor workload trends, the company enabled better management of seasonal fluctuations and workflow shifts.
Still, there are limitations to how AI can be implemented in the workplace. Not every role offers eight hours of work that can be easily automated. For AI to reduce work hours, tasks need to be routine and repetitive, which is not the case for many senior or creative roles.
In an ideal world, an AI application that removes an hour of mindless work allows employees to focus on higher-level tasks, ultimately boosting their efficiency and effectiveness, says Hamlyn. You don’t need to automate a full eight hours to save eight hours of work. “Mindless tasks drain productivity,” he says. “Automate those, assign more meaningful work and you’ll see employees thrive while saving time overall.”
