{"id":208420,"date":"2025-10-12T18:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T18:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208420\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T18:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T18:30:07","slug":"ai-tools-churn-out-workslop-for-many-us-employees-but-the-buck-should-stop-with-the-boss-gene-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208420\/","title":{"rendered":"AI tools churn out \u2018workslop\u2019 for many US employees, but \u2018the buck\u2019 should stop with the boss | Gene Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence<\/a> sure has been taking a lot of flak lately.<\/p>\n

Only 8.5% of the 48,000 people recently surveyed by accounting firm KPMG<\/a> said that they \u201calways\u201d trust AI search results. Another report from Gartner<\/a> found that more than half of consumers don\u2019t trust AI searches, with most reporting \u201csignificant\u201d mistakes.<\/p>\n

A McKinsey study<\/a> found that 80% of companies using generative AI have seen \u201cno significant bottom-line impact\u201d, with 42% of them literally abandoning their AI projects. An MIT study<\/a> found that 95% of the AI pilot projects at the big companies they surveyed \u201cfailed\u201d.<\/p>\n

And now there\u2019s workslop!<\/p>\n

A new study published in the Harvard Business Review<\/a> says that more than 40% of US-based full-time employees reported receiving AI-generated content that \u201cmasquerades as good work but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task\u201d. This \u201cworkslop\u201d is \u201cdestroying productivity\u201d, according to the study\u2019s researchers.<\/p>\n

Who is really to blame for workslop? Sure, blame big tech companies for yet again releasing untested and unproven products before they\u2019re ready for prime time. Or the media and tech community who, for the past three years, have been writing pieces like Yahoo Japan wants all its 11,000 employees to use Gen AI to double their productivity by 2028<\/a> or AI will replace doctors, teachers, and make humans \u201cunnecessary for most things\u201d<\/a>. All of this creates a lot of unnecessary hype and unfounded expectations.<\/p>\n

But in the workplace, the buck always stops with the boss. The responsibility for AI\u2019s \u201cworkslop\u201d lies fully at the feet of the employer.<\/p>\n

For more than 20 years, my company has implemented customer relationship and financial management applications at hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses across the country. We\u2019ve worked with thousands of employees. We\u2019ve had good projects and straight-out failures. As a technology consultant, we\u2019ve made our share of mistakes. But the most common root cause of technology disappointments, failures and letdowns can always be found with the people who are buying and implementing the product.<\/p>\n

So before throwing shade at software companies rolling out AI, I think it\u2019s fair to ask employers a few questions.<\/p>\n

For example, did you invest in training for your employees? Do your employees truly understand how to create the right prompts in order to get the best answers? Has your company standardized on an AI assistant or is it just a free-for-all mess of apps?<\/p>\n

Do you have an AI policy that formalizes what AI can and cannot be used for and who can and cannot use it? Do you have a designated person in your company who is responsible for your AI-based applications? Has this person been trained and provided technical support to do this job? Are you working with a competent partner, consultant or developer to provide these kinds of services?<\/p>\n

Most importantly, do you actually have a plan for using this technology effectively or are you just leaving it up to your employees to figure it all out? Do you have specific metrics for measuring AI\u2019s effectiveness, or are you just relying on vague assumptions of \u201cproductivity\u201d?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many employers are duped by big tech into thinking that they just press a button and their software starts doing magical things that spew out money for their business. But, in order not to scare people away, these same tech companies don\u2019t warn their customers of all the other things that need to happen \u2013 and money that needs to be spent \u2013 in order to maximize the use of their product. In most cases, the software is not the problem. It\u2019s the lack of investment in the people using it.<\/p>\n

AI can be a powerful tool if deployed the right way and with the right expectations. But in the end it\u2019s just that: a tool. And new tools require thought, training, processes and investment. In the end, AI doesn\u2019t produce \u201cworkslop\u201d. Employers do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence sure has been taking a lot of flak lately. Only 8.5% of the 48,000 people recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-208420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}