WAIT, ONE MORE THING.
THE GREAT AI EXPERIMENT: HARVARD x BCG
Harvard Business School and BCG teamed up to test AI in the workplace—and the results are fascinating.
In late 2023, Harvard Business School and BCG conducted a study on AI’s impact on employee performance. The experiment took 800 BCG consultants (7% of their workforce!) and tested how AI impacted the quality and efficiency of their work.
Across 18 complex tasks, AI significantly boosted the performance for BCG consultants. Consultants using AI completed 12.2% more tasks on average, finished tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without.
These tasks weren’t a simple “Write me an email” or “Edit this blog post.” They were complex, multistep business scenarios.
Interestingly, AI had a greater positive impact on less-capable employees.
While AI improved performance on many tasks, there were instances where it hindered performance. These were tasks involving complex reasoning and data analysis. It appears that employees using AI may have overly relied on their seemingly competent copilots.
My Main Takeaways
AI Boosts Performance: Even providing employees with access to a versatile chatbot with little direction increases their performance.
AI is a Skill-Leveler: AI is not just a performance enhancer but a tool that levels the playing field by improving the performance of less-capable employees.
AI Beyond Task Automation: AI can significantly assist in brainstorming, creating and refining strategies, and solving complex business problems.
Training Employees: Employees need to be trained on what AI excels at and where it falls short to prevent over-reliance and degradation of performance.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to dig in further and read the paper here. It really is fascinating.
Until next time,
Bennie 3
LINK TO FULL RESEARCH PAPER HERE
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