This study might be a nightmare for many employees as the reality that AI will take away their jobs is becoming a reality. I did not want to scare you, but this can be a good sign to start learning AI tools from today.
1 Employee with AI beats 2 Employees in a new study
A single employee can do better work than two employees if he/she knows how to use AI tools. The productivity gain will be about 37%.
This is what a new study titled “The Cybernetic Teammate” found. It was done by Procter & Gamble researchers. This sounds like something from a Sci-Fi movie, but it might become reality very soon.
Here’s a simple explainer of how the study was done. The researchers set up 4 different working scenarios:
- Individual working alone without AI
- Team (Two Individuals) working together with AI
- Individual working with AI
- Team (Two Individuals) working with AI
The professionals were from the US and Europe. The AI tools provided in the experiment were GPT-4 and GPT-4o.
The results were shocking:
The best work is done by a Team with AI, but the gain is not so much compared to an Individual with AI. However, the best growth can be seen when we compare the 2nd and 3rd scenario. An individual, with the help of generative AI tools, performed better than two people.
In the study, the two-person team consists of a commercial professional and a technical expert. But when only one of them works by themselves, and they were given the helping hand of an AI assistant, the boundaries are blurred. This means it will be easier for an employee to start managing the other employee’s job, even if they had only a little idea of the second job.
Of course, companies will love it. Now, they have had to hire only one person and just give them some AI tools. The AI tools will be cheaper than hiring a second person. With AI stepping in as a “cybernetic teammate”, companies could potentially streamline workflows, reduce the need for large teams, and still maintain high-quality output.
One of the key researcher has this to say about this study: “To successfully use AI, organizations will need to change their analogies. Our findings suggest AI sometimes functions more like a teammate than a tool.“
At last, we had an Individual working AI with no help from AI. They were last on the list. Individuals with AI are at last 24% better than them. This is also an indication that learning AI is necessary. If you don’t want to, read about some jobs that AI can’t replace.
Beyond just performance metrics, the experiment revealed that AI’s impact runs deeper. Participants reported more positive emotions. They were feeling more excited, engaged, and less frustrated when working with AI. So, the fact that AI is emotionless might not be completely true, at least when real people work with it and do their work faster.
Takeaways
A good thing to take away from this experiment is that humans are not completely replaceable by machines. It’s just that humans will enhance their capabilities with AI on their side. A 37% boost is not a small number. So the next time you are doing a solo project, add an AI tool to the party.
I also want to mention one of the limitations of the study: it only provided the employees with an AI chatbot, no other AI tools. hile chatbots are great for quick brainstorming, the quality of their responses can be hit-or-miss. When making big decisions, the expertise of humans and their experience are important.
Also, the research only counted two people in a team. If it is a large group of team members, the performance boost might not be the same.
