Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI

by Ethan Mollick

Second, leaders need to figure out a way to decrease the fear associated with revealing AI use. Assuming early studies are true and we see productivity improvements of 20 to 80 percent on various high-value professional tasks, I fear the natural instinct among many managers is “fire people, save money.” But it does not need to be that way. There are many reasons for companies to not turn efficiency gains into head-count reduction or cost reduction. Companies that figure out how to use their newly productive workforce should be able to dominate any company that tries to keep their post-AI output the same as their pre-AI output, just with fewer people. And companies that commit to maintaining their workforce will likely have employees as partners who are happy to teach others about the uses of AI at work, rather than scared workers who hide their AI for fear of being replaced.