For any technology-driven time saver it is imperative to ask: how will the time savings be spent? We’ve all read a lot about how spiffy new generative AI tools like ChatGPT can save workers time by writing first drafts of all kinds of content, from emails to internal reports to customer communications. So, when the effort required to produce content decreases, will that time be spent on other business activities, reducing employee stress, or producing more content?

I hope it’s option 1 or 2. But experience has taught me that momentum is behind option 3: more, more, more. If a monthly company report now takes less time for a department to produce, the easiest response is to use the time savings to produce sub-reports for each company division too. Or maybe do it weekly instead of monthly. That requires no change in duties, no retraining, and seems to immediately increase value a bit. The value from options 1 and 2 are more vague and long term.

I have found the terms “information overload” and “stress” to be ineffective in spurring enterprise action. But the issue of poor decision making resonates. If there’s so much information flying at workers that they don’t notice when something important happens, the result is bad decisions that can have large impacts.

29% of respondents to our 2022 Gartner Digital Worker Survey frequently (or usually or always) struggled to find information or data needed to effectively perform their job. 22% frequently (or usually or always) missed or failed to notice important updates because of the number of applications used and/or the volume of information produced on them.

And that’s before ChatGPT. Now throw in more content being produced at a quicker pace. And more emails that used to be short and to-the-point may now be inflated to full, polite corporate-speak by the AI.

For more insight I asked an expert: Google’s Bard chatbot.  It said, “It is possible that the increase in generative AI could result in you having to slog through more content to get what you want.”

Bard also added “However, it is also possible that generative AI could make it easier to find the content you want. For example, generative AI could be used to create personalized content recommendations or to filter out irrelevant content.”

Sure, that’s possible.  But it sounds like something an AI chatbot would say.

Bard’s response is pointing to a renewed focus on enterprise attention management (often based on “guided attention”). I can only hope that if technology gets us into this situation, technology can help get us out of it.