OpenAI Found 75% of Workers Say AI Has Improved Their Output

A new OpenAI report found a majority of surveyed workers seeing positive results from artificial intelligence (AI).

The AI startup on Monday (Dec. 8) released findings from its “State of Enterprise AI” report, which drew on real-world usage data from OpenAI’s enterprise customers, as well as a survey of 9,000 workers on AI adoption patterns.

“For the first time, we’re sharing a comprehensive look at how enterprises are adopting AI, what workers say they’re gaining, and how organizational leaders are turning experimentation into measurable productivity and new capabilities,” the report said.

Among the survey’s findings: 75% of workers said that using AI at work has improved either the speed or quality of their output. Workers said they were saving 40 to 60 minutes each day, with “heavy users” saying they were saving upwards of 10 hours a week.

Drilling down, the survey found that 87% of IT workers reported faster issue resolutions, 85% of marketing and product users saw speedier campaign execution, and three out of every four HR professions said they’d seen improved employee engagement.

“Crucially, AI is not just helping people do the same work faster—it is enabling people to do new kinds of work,” the company said.

For example, coding-related messages increased 36% for workers outside of technical functions, while three-quarters of users said they could now complete new tasks they once could not perform.

The survey comes in the closing weeks of a year that has seen high-profile research questioning AI’s benefits in the workplace.

For example, researchers at MIT released a report which found that most organizations are getting “zero return” on their investments into the generative AI space. The study found that just 5% of “integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value, while the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable [profit and loss] impact.”

Writing in response to the MIT findings, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster pointed to research from PYMNTS Intelligence showing — over an 18 month stretch — increasing numbers of enterprise executives who said that generative AI is highly effective for things like product development, workflow management and internal processes.

“We also find executives at some of the largest companies in the U.S. reporting a strong, or what I might even call compelling, positive impact of Gen AI across the enterprise, with 90% of enterprise chiefs citing a positive impact on their customer experience, and more than three quarters citing a positive impact on their competitive position,” Webster wrote.