Employers rather than staff are capturing most of the productivity benefits from the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace.<\/p>\n
That is according to a new study from University College Dublin (UCD), Queen’s University Belfast, the Nevin Economic Research Institute and Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid.<\/p>\n
The findings come from the Working in Ireland Survey 2025, a large-scale survey administered to 4,300 workers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
It found that almost a third of workers now use AI at work but that this appears to be benefiting employers rather than staff.<\/p>\n
“Most workers who save time using AI say they reinvest that time to take on more work, rather than using it to achieve a better work life balance,” the report found.<\/p>\n
“A third of workers report the pace of their work has intensified and very few, a mere 4.7%, report any increase in their earnings as a result of using AI,” according to the study.<\/p>\n
The report, which was led by Professor John Geary from UCD, found that AI adoption is strongly divided by education, occupation, gender, earnings and firm size.<\/p>\n
Workers with postgraduate degrees are up to 15 times more likely to use AI than those with basic educational qualifications, according to the study.<\/p>\n
There is also a considerable gender gap in AI use, with males considerably more likely than females to use multiple AI tools in their work.<\/p>\n
On the question of AI leading to job losses, the report finds that while the evidence is mixed and complex, the warning signs are clear.<\/p>\n
“Job automation risks leading to job displacement,” according to the report.<\/p>\n
“If AI permits a worker to do more repetitive work usually performed by a colleague, that colleague may no longer be necessary.”<\/p>\n
However, the other half of AI users who derive time savings from using AI, redirect the time saved to undertake more complex and creative job tasks.<\/p>\n
“In these instances, AI use might be fairly claimed to benefit workers in that it enlarges their responsibilities into new more challenging and fulfilling areas,” the study found.<\/p>\n
“Here, it acts to complement rather than to substitute for higher-order human judgement and creativity.”<\/p>\n
Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke said the Working in Ireland Survey 2025, provides a comprehensive picture of the growing impact of AI on workplaces across the island of Ireland.<\/p>\n
“As Ireland continues to position itself as a leader in digital innovation, it is vital that the adoption of AI is both responsible and inclusive,” Mr Burke said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employers rather than staff are capturing most of the productivity benefits from the increased use of artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-648244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648244","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=648244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}