Who gets the most out of AI assistance?
Design for novices first: surface best-practice suggestions where newcomers struggle, and keep them optional for experts.
What the research says
In field and lab studies, AI help sped people up, and the biggest gains went to less experienced or lower-performing workers. Top performers gained little.
“Less experienced and lower-skilled workers improve both the speed and quality of their output while the most experienced and highest-skilled workers see small gains in speed and small declines in quality.”
Brynjolfsson et al., 2023
Sources
- Generative AI at Work2023 · NBER / arXiv · Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li, Lindsey Raymond
“Less experienced and lower-skilled workers improve both the speed and quality of their output while the most experienced and highest-skilled workers see small gains in speed and small declines in quality.”
Abstract - Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence2023 · Science · Shakked Noy, Whitney Zhang
“Inequality between workers decreases, as ChatGPT compresses the productivity distribution by benefiting low-ability workers more.”
Abstract (2023 working paper)