Will Employers Pay More or Nah? 💵

Everyone’s worried AI will replace them. I’m wondering if it’ll just make us do more work for the same pay 😕

OpenAI analyzed more than 800,000 work related ChatGPT conversations from U.S. business users to better understand how people are actually using AI at work. They found that “44% of occupation-specific ChatGPT requests involved” work outside the user’s inferred occupation. In other words, lots of people weren’t just using AI for tasks associated with their own job, but also using it to help perform work that’s traditionally been associated with other professions or specialists.

OpenAI’s Chief Economist, Ronnie Chatterji, said, “The boundaries between jobs are likely already becoming more flexible due to AI.”

Research suggests boundaries between roles are becoming blurred. Interesting.

So does this new ability to perform work beyond your specialty just become part of your existing role, or will companies redefine roles, promotions, and compensation to reflect those changes?

Today with AI, a recruiter can analyze data, a product manager can draft marketing copy, and a founder can build a simple internal tool that would’ve typically been assigned to another department. The result may not match the quality of a specialist, but AI can likely get them far enough to solve the problem, or produce a strong first draft.

OpenAI didn’t say this means AI is replacing specialists, they just discovered that people were using ChatGPT for more than just general tasks. People were also using it to help create marketing content, troubleshoot software, perform financial analysis, and interpret regulations. These were tasks outside of their inferred occupation which companies normally relied on specialists or dedicated teams to perform.

These possibilities have the potential to change how companies think about roles, promotions, and pay. Typically, taking on responsibilities outside your job description came with a promotion or higher pay. If AI makes those responsibilities easier to take on, will companies still see them as additional work? Or will they simply become part of what’s expected and expand the tasks of the role?

I’d say the biggest question is: if AI expands what’s expected of a role, will compensation expand with it?