Workers who have less say in AI adoption report lower job satisfaction

AI is becoming widespread in the workplace, but employees who have no say in how it’s used report lower job satisfaction.

That’s according to one of a handful of recent data points on how AI is shaping the future of work. Any big AI job-pocalypse might be further off than the current panic would indicate, another report found, but that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t reshaping offices in the meantime.

Here’s a roundup of some of the latest research on AI and jobs.

Tech influencers: Plenty of studies tally the number of job openings and employment levels; a new index aims to take a deeper look at the quality of those jobs.

The report comes from a group of nonprofits and research orgs—Jobs for the Future, the Families & Workers Fund, the W.E. Upjohn Institute, and Gallup.

It found that 60% of Americans lack quality jobs, with more than half feeling left out of important decisions in the workplace, including the adoption of new technology like artificial intelligence tools, where 55% of respondents said they would like more influence.

This lack of input was consistent across education levels: From “high school or less” to graduate degrees, the portion ranged between 53% and 57%. Those who do have a say in tech adoption tend to be happier—46% of those with desired influence reported satisfaction, versus 28% among those without.

“Employees have opinions about the way that technology is implemented, and they experience the direct impacts of that technology on their jobs,” Molly Blankenship, director of strategy and impact at Jobs for the Future, told Tech Brew.

“The important thing that jumped out to me from conversations with workers in this work is that the conversation around technology right now is not a two-way dialogue, and if we could make it [one], that could have a really major impact, not only on worker satisfaction…but also how successful the actual tech implementation is,” Blankenship added.

Training data: New research from Indeed found that the more exposed a job is to AI replacement, the less likely it is to mention training programs in the job description.

That’s partly because the jobs most exposed to GenAI tend to be higher-skilled and higher-paying, whereas training programs are clustered in jobs with lower wages and lower experience or education requirements, Indeed said. On the whole, jobs advertising training programs have been on the rise since 2018, from 3.4% to 8.1%.

Indeed also released its annual AI at work report last month, which found that more than a quarter of jobs on its platform could be “highly” transformed by AI, while 54% might “moderately” change. The research looked at how technology might alter component skills involved in a role rather than whether AI would replace the job outright.

Decades, not months: When should we expect that transformation? If past technology waves are any indication, it could take longer than some headlines lead you to believe.

That’s according to a recent report from Yale University’s Budget Lab, which found that despite hand-wringing, the pace of labor market change in the nearly three years since ChatGPT’s release has roughly matched that following other broad innovations, like computers or the internet. Those tech disruptions occurred over decades rather than months or years, the authors wrote, and AI effects are happening on a similar timeline.

“Our metrics indicate that the broader labor market has not experienced a discernible disruption since ChatGPT’s release 33 months ago, undercutting fears that AI automation is currently eroding the demand for cognitive labor across the economy,” the Yale researchers wrote.