{"id":623527,"date":"2026-09-13T15:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623527\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:34:14","slug":"thats-not-your-job-ai-ushers-in-a-blurring-of-the-lines-at-work-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623527\/","title":{"rendered":"That\u2019s not your job: AI ushers in a blurring of the lines at work \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some workplaces are more territorial than others. In newsrooms, for example, most reporters guard their own \u201cbeats\u201d jealously and give toe-treaders short shrift. <\/p>\n

I suspect we are a special case, but even so, the majority of organisations have a pretty clear idea of who is responsible for what \u2013 and who isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

But for how much longer? On-the-ground reports from a range of workplaces suggest the traditional boundaries of many occupations are beginning to weaken as people use artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) to perform elements of one another\u2019s jobs. <\/p>\n

For the most part, this isn\u2019t because managers have redesigned workflows and responsibilities. Instead, this mass turf-trampling is happening messily and organically \u2013 to the benefit of some and the detriment of others.<\/p>\n

A recent analysis by OpenAI<\/a> found that people frequently use ChatGPT<\/a> for work tasks which lie beyond the traditional boundary of their own occupation, such as troubleshooting software issues, drafting marketing materials and calculating financial data.<\/p>\n

In a sample of about 800,000 work-related messages, around 17 per cent were classed as \u201ccross-occupation\u201d, which meant they concerned tasks associated with a different role to the user\u2019s own. <\/p>\n

A further 22 per cent concerned tasks related to their own occupation, with the rest classified as \u201cgeneric\u201d ones such as writing emails or scheduling meetings.<\/p>\n

There may well be speed and efficiency advantages in no longer having to track down an expert colleague for help with something like a software issue, albeit possibly at the cost of a less collaborative and conversational culture. (And provided you don\u2019t wade into mistakes the specialists eventually have to fix anyway.)<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Nearly half of Irish workers say AI is making them consider new careers, survey findsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But in some workplaces, these occupational boundary shifts are leading to deeper changes. <\/p>\n

When researchers Jana Retkowsky, Ella Hafermalz and Marleen Huysman conducted an ethnographic study into an advertising team in a Dutch media company, for example, they found that generative AI had changed the workflow profoundly.<\/p>\n

\"\"From kitchen counter to supermarket shelves, the rise of Ballymaloe Foods<\/p>\n

Before AI, a senior creative would brainstorm ideas and come up with some rough concepts for clients to choose from. After that, a number of different professionals, from graphic designers to photographers, would be involved in the collaborative and creative to-and-fro which eventually resulted in the finished product.<\/p>\n

After AI, the senior creative could use Midjourney to create a seemingly fully formed, beautifully polished concept right at the beginning of the process. The other professionals\u2019 jobs were now reduced to trying to execute the AI-generated pitch.<\/p>\n

Retkowsky told me it was a tricky dynamic for colleagues to discuss, but that those conversations could lead to new ways of doing things that kept everyone involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be talked about, which is awkward, since you are effectively telling a colleague they have taken over parts of your work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is harder still when the person taking it over is excited about it. The creative directors loved the new autonomy of being able to visualise their own ideas, and they were not encroaching on anyone deliberately.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Artificial intelligence: \u2018One screw-up … and we will destroy any remaining trust the public has in science\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But, she said, teams that avoid the awkward conversation could \u201cend up pushing people out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another piece of forthcoming research, this time on video games companies, finds a similar phenomenon of \u201coverlapping roles\u201d in which AI is enabling artists to code and programmers to make artwork. <\/p>\n

Damian Grimshaw of King\u2019s College London, one of the authors, said that while people had become \u201cvery obsessed\u201d with the impact of AI on the vertical lines between juniors and seniors, he thought it \u201cequally important just how much overlapping there is going on now which is horizontal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, occupations have never been fixed bundles of tasks. Indeed, one paper from 2020 found that a substantial share of the long-run change in work had actually happened within job titles, rather than because some died out and others appeared or grew. <\/p>\n

And when occupations do disappear, sometimes it is because everyone else absorbs that work into their own daily jobs. Just think of typists.<\/p>\n

But while shifting job boundaries is not new, that does not mean it doesn\u2019t feel destabilising to be on the wrong end of those changes (and exciting to be on the right end of them).<\/p>\n

There is a lot of focus right now on employers\u2019 plans for AI. But if you are worried about your job being automated, the more proximate threat could be that colleague with a Claude subscription and a manic glint in their eye. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some workplaces are more territorial than others. In newsrooms, for example, most reporters guard their own \u201cbeats\u201d jealously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,2670,61,60,1225,80,1962],"class_list":["post-623527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-chatgpt","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-open-ai","tag-technology","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}