Your Employees Hate These Tasks at Work. They Say AI Can Help

New research commissioned by AI writing tool Grammarly and conducted by Talker Research found nearly half of the workers who responded hate the repetitive office tasks that make up the daily grind. The 44 percent total is no surprise, and you’ve probably had similar thoughts when you have to fill in a travel budget request form for Steve in Accounts—yet again. But it’s the AI era, and workers are increasingly aware that there are tools that can help wipe out this recurring drudgery—and 62 percent of the survey respondents said there are plenty of tasks they’d like to speed up with AI. The Grammarly study, which involved 2,000 knowledge workers, defined as people who work with computers in some way in the office, showed that certain tasks that have to do interrupt their momentum, getting in the way of productive work. The New York Post reported that respondents they have to undertake 53 of these tasks a week, on average, and they cost the typical worker some 3.5 hours of meaningful work. And while over four in 10 people hate carrying out repetitive tasks, there’s a generational spread in the data: 57 percent of Gen Z workers don’t enjoy mundane tasks, only 42 percent of Gen X feel the same. Anecdotally, this makes sense—Gen Z is used to living online, dealing with the fast-paced, constantly changing digital realm of social media, memes, and a world that never seems to stand still. That’s part of why many reports say that they feel very differently about the typical office job and workplace norms. The survey also asked what kind of tasks workers would like to use AI for, and how they’d like the experience to be. Fully 35 percent of people wanted AI to help with the tiresome task of drafting an email, and 34 percent said they’d want an AI to help with repetitive tasks like sorting spreadsheet data. Another 33 percent wanted the AI to draft meeting notes so they wouldn’t have to, and 31 percent wanted AI to carry out workflows automatically. The speed at which AI tools are evolving is a big factor in respondents’ interest in convenience. The data also showed 49 percent of workers would favor a tool that’s easy to use, and 35 percent said they wanted one that’s easy to prompt. Prompting an AI is a skill that can be developed, and it can greatly impact a generative tool like a chatbot, leading to a tighter, more useful output if you properly refine your questions . Since only 38 percent of the respondents’ companies have a preexisting policy on AI use, this makes sense—many companies are lagging on training staff and openly allowing them to use AI to save time. Over 50 percent of respondents said they wished their company was more open to AI use, and Gen Z led this sentiment, with 67 percent feeling this way, compared to just 45 percent of Gen X. Why should you care about these statistics? They do, after all, simply back up plenty of reports about the rising popularity of AI, and the fact that younger workers are more keen to adopt the technology to relieve them of humdrum office tasks than older workers are—even though, on the whole, roughly half of all workers are keen to use AI to do mundane jobs. The data even back up recent advice from the likes of entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who pointed out that AI is already great at taking on repetitive tasks. You should care precisely because the survey shows you how your staff could be using AI to free up their day to tackle more productive work. And because if your company is pro-AI, and you really want to reap the full benefits, it would be best for your business if every age cohort in your workforce was as keen to use AI as every other. Grammarly’s data show that maybe you should put an official AI use policy in place. Then you should train users of every age on how to make the most of what AI can offer, instead of relying on your digitally savvy younger workers to carry out your AI wishes. BY KIT EATON @KITEATON