Anurag Garg
There are too many AI tools, says Anurag Garg
When ChatGPT emerged in late 2022, the PR agency's founder, Anurag Garg, wanted his team of 11 to quickly integrate the technology into their workflow, so the company could keep pace with its competitors.
Mr. Garg encouraged his employees to use the AI language tool for the agency's long list of daily tasks, from coming up with story ideas for clients, pitching to the media and transcribing notes from meetings and interviews.
But rather than increasing team productivity, it created stress and tension.
Staff reported that the tasks actually took longer because they had to create a brief and prompts for ChatGPT, while also having to check its results for inaccuracies, of which there were many.
And every time the platform was updated, they had to learn its new features, which also took more time.
“There were too many distractions. The team was complaining that their tasks were taking twice as long because we now expected them to use AI tools,” says Garg, who runs Everest PR and splits his time between United States and India.
The primary goal of introducing AI into the enterprise was to simplify people's workflows, but it actually gave everyone more work, and made them feel stressed and exhausted. »
As a business leader, Mr. Garg also began to feel overwhelmed by the growing number of AI tools being released and feeling obligated to keep pace with each new addition. Not only was he using ChatGPT as his team, but also Zapier to track team tasks and Perplexity to complete customer research.
“There is an overflow of AI tools on the market, and no single tool solves many problems. As a result, I had to constantly keep tabs on multiple AI tools to perform tasks, which became even more complicated. It was difficult to know which tool was supposed to do what, and I started to get completely frustrated,” says Garg.
“The market is flooded with AI tools, so if I invest in a specific application today, a better one will be available next week. There is a constant learning curve to staying relevant, which I struggled to manage, leading to burnout.
Mr. Garg returned to the mandate that the team should use AI in all their work, and now they use it mainly for research purposes – and everyone is much happier.
“It was a learning phase for us. The work is now more manageable because we don't use too many AI tools. We've gone back to everything being done directly by the team, and they feel more connected and engaged in their work. It’s much better,” says Mr. Garg.
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Some office workers say AI adds work and decreases productivity
The stress Garg and his team felt when using AI tools at work is reflected in recent research.
In independent platform Upwork's survey of 2,500 knowledge workers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, 96% of senior executives say they expect Using AI tools increases their company's overall productivity levels – and 81% of them admit they have increased their productivity demands. workers over the past year.
Yet 77% of employees surveyed say AI tools have actually decreased their productivity and increased their workload. And 47% of employees using AI in the survey say they don't know how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect.
As a result, 61% of people believe that using AI at work will increase their chances of suffering from burnout – with this figure rising to 87% of people under 25, a separate survey of 1,150 Americans by resume writing company Resume Now.
The Resume Now survey also highlights that 43% of respondents believe AI will have a negative impact on work-life balance.
Whether the technology is AI-based or not, surveys suggest that many workers already feel overwhelmed.
Further research by work management platform Asana highlights the effect of introducing more work-based apps.
In its survey of 9,615 knowledge workers in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, the study found that among those who use six to 15 different applications on their workplace, 15% say they miss messages and notifications because of the number of tools.
Among those who use 16 or more, 23% say they are less effective and have a reduced attention span due to constantly having to switch apps.
As Cassie Holmes, a professor of management at the University of California, Los Angeles, commented in the study: “Using multiple applications requires more time to learn them and move from one to another, and this lost time is painful because we are very sensitive to wasted time. »
Gemma shoots people
Leah Steele says workers should do more with less
Lawyer turned coach, Leah Steele now specializes in helping legal professionals overcome burnout, with many feeling overwhelmed by their firms' increased workload after introducing productivity tools based on AI. It’s an experience she knows well, after the introduction of a new technology platform in a previous role saw her client caseload increase from 50 to 250.
“The biggest thing I see is this continuing competing demand to do more with less – but companies aren't really asking themselves if the systems and technologies they're introducing are delivering an outcome that isn't useful,” says Bristol-based Mrs Steele.
“Everything is happening so fast. It's a constant fight to stay at the cutting edge and develop expertise in such a specialized field.
The burnout lawyers are currently experiencing, Steele adds, is not just about the increasing volume of work that technology and AI tools are facilitating, but also the knock-on effects.
“When we think about burnout, it's not just about the volume of work we do, but also how we feel about our work and what we get out of it,” says Steele. .
“You might feel stressed to find yourself in an environment where work volume is high and control is low, when what you originally wanted was to interact personally with customers and make a difference for them. »
Ms Steele adds: “You might also feel stressed about the risk of losing your job and the fear of being replaced because you no longer enjoy your job because it has become so technology-driven. »
The Law Society of England and Wales recognizes that lawyers need better support from law firm leaders to make the most of new technologies like AI.
“If AI and new technologies can make legal work more efficient by automating routine tasks, they can also create more work for lawyers, not less,” says Chairman Richard Atkinson.
“Learning to use these tools takes time and lawyers often have to undergo training and adapt their work processes. Many technologies were not originally designed for the legal industry, which can make the transition more difficult.
Stolen
AI can be a big help for small businesses, says Alicia Navarro
Alicia Navarro is the founder and CEO of Flown, an online platform and community that helps people focus on “deep work” – tasks that require sustained focus. She acknowledges there is an “avalanche” of AI tools, but says they need to be used correctly.
“There is a tremendous amount of filtering and learning that needs to be done before these tools can even begin to become productive elements in our lives.”
But she says that for small businesses with limited resources, AI can be a big help.
“It’s an incredibly empowering thing for start-ups to be able to do a lot more, or for companies to be able to pay more dividends or pay their team more.”
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