Employees are taking their burning work questions to ChatGPT

As employees familiarize themselves with new technology, they're finding some creative ways to utilize AI in their day-to-day workflow. From drafting up emails to getting life and career advice, employees are using ChatGPT as their own personal assistant and career coach. 

Fifty-seven percent of American workers have tried ChatGPT, according to a recent study conducted by Pew Research Center, and 16% regularly use the tool to help them complete tasks at work. ChatGPT's platform enables employees to easily ask questions or request certain tasks be completed, using a series of prompts. 

But crafting the right queries can take some trial and error. To explore how the tech tool is actually supporting employees at work, Employee Benefit News asked employees what exactly they're asking the bot to help them with. According to exclusive research from EBN, employees see the tool as a time saver, with one respondent sharing, "ChatGPT is a tool that I use daily. This has assisted me with drafting plans, emails and other communications. It also a sufficient tool with presentations." The data also found that 28% of professionals have used ChatGPT either at work or for personal use.

Check out EBN's full special report on the Tech Revolution to see how top employers are incorporating AI and other tech tools into open enrollment, recruiting, benefit strategies and more:

• For an easier open enrollment, introduce AI and ChatGPT
• How AI frees up recruiters to focus on people first
• Can AI solve the mental health crisis?
• AI is closing the generation gap in the workplace

In some cases, the tech was initially used as a joke, but now is a mainstay in the workplace, shared Vlad Susanu, a tech founder.
"At first, we were just having a bit of fun with it — we would ask things like what was for lunch or to come up with icebreakers for our meetings," Susanu says. "But we soon realized this curious AI had so much more to offer than that — now, it's a go-to resource for learning new things, brainstorming projects and even keeping our creativity flowing on slow days." 

Read more: 47% of Gen Z get better career advice from ChatGPT than from their managers

Many employees shared their desire to use ChatGPT to boost productivity and keep them more focused on work, a benefit experienced across the board. A study by MIT compared employee productivity with and without the use of ChatGPT: Without it, employees spent 25% of their time brainstorming, 50% writing a draft and 25% editing. With ChatGPT, however, draft writing decreased by more than 50%, and the time editing more than doubled — an increase in productivity that lasted throughout the entire task.

For younger generations in particular, ChatGPT can even dish out career advice. Nearly half of young professionals claim they get better career advice from AI programs like ChatGPT than they do from their own manager, according to a recent survey from career development platform Intoo. 

But despite the resources and potential fun that can be culled from these tools, anyone interacting with AI should exercise a healthy amount of caution, and invest time in proper training. 

"The technology holds much promise, but it requires thoughtful implementation," says Jed Macosko, a tech expert and the research director at Academic Influence, a site that uses machine learning to rank educational institutions against several different quality metrics. "As AI capabilities grow, we as humans need to focus on developing wisdom and ethics alongside knowledge and skills." 

From tech support to mental health tips, see what kind of help employees are getting from the hyper-intelligent chatbot: