How managers can use AI to boost productivity

By Wade Zhou

In 2013, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, two academics at the University of Oxford, published an influential study assessing the likelihood of various jobs being automated. Based on their research, they concluded that “routine jobs” for low-wage workers were the most likely to be automated. Their analysis, based on the technology available at the time, conjured up images of factory workers being replaced by machines on assembly lines.

Over a decade later, the image of automation has changed. Modern AI systems have proven adept at generating text, computer code, images, and more, putting the jobs of graphic designers, programmers, writers, and other professionals at risk. Contrary to Frey and Osborne’s conclusion,...