Technology & innovation
Employees are using AI to generate polished-looking but ultimately useless work. Workslop is costing organizations both productivity and damaging professional relationships, according to new research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab.
Workslop is both widespread and costly:
41% of surveyed employees reported receiving workslop that affected their work, while over half admitted to sending it to colleagues.
One in 10 employees said that 50% or more of the AI-generated work they sent colleagues was "actually unhelpful, low effort, or low quality."
Each workslop incident takes approximately two hours to resolve, costing an estimated $186 per employee monthly. That adds up to roughly $9 million annually for a company with 10,000 workers.
Colleagues who produce workslop are viewed as less capable, less reliable:
Approximately half of workers who received workslop viewed colleagues who sent it as less creative, capable, and reliable than before.
Workers can end up feeling "gaslit" and "angry" after managers use ChatGPT to incorrectly summarize their work, and employees are likely to lose hope of promotion after receiving AI-generated performance reviews.
Why employees create workslop:
Experts say workslop stems from management failure, not employee laziness.
41% of surveyed employees reported that leadership encouraged them to use AI without detailed instructions or contextual understanding needed to apply it meaningfully.
Workers face mandates to use AI, combined with heavier workloads, burnout, and environments where it doesn't feel safe to admit uncertainty.
This results in "performative AI adoption," wherein employees use AI tools to demonstrate compliance rather than advance work.
What prevents workslop?
AI competence: Employees with a sense of competence over AI tools are 50% less likely to create workslop.
Open communication: When employees feel safe admitting AI use and asking for feedback, workslop decreases by 61%.
Clear expectations: Create explicit expectations for when and how to use AI.
Read more via Harvard Business Review
Virtually all senior data and AI executives report their organizations view AI as a top priority and plan to increase spending, according to the latest Data & AI Leadership Exchange Executive Benchmark Survey of over 100 Fortune 1000 executives.
AI investment and measurable results:
99% stated that investments in data and AI are a top organizational priority.
90% of firms now have appointed a Chief Data Officer, up from just 12% when the survey began fifteen years ago. 38% have appointed a Chief AI Officer.
Firms with AI in production at scale jumped from 5% to 39% in just two years, with 94% now beyond pure experimentation, up from 29% two years ago.
54% report realizing high or significant business value from AI investments, up from 47% last year, while just 8% report little or no value, down from 19%.
Human challenges overshadow technology:
93% identified human issues such as culture and change management as the key challenge to AI adoption—the highest percentage ever recorded. Only 7% blamed technology.
Fear of job loss is increasing rapidly, alongside insufficient resources for upskilling employees.
Leadership remains optimistic:
83% believe AI will become the most transformational technology in a generation.
97% believe the long-run impact of AI will be beneficial.
Read more via Harvard Business Review, Data & AI Leadership Exchange
President Trump's December 11 Executive Order aims to reduce state-level AI regulation and challenge laws deemed to "embed ideological bias within models," creating potential compliance conflicts for employers that are navigating both federal directives and existing state AI employment laws.
The Executive Order establishes a litigation task force to challenge state regulations:
The order will create an AI Litigation Task Force to pursue legal challenges against state regulations that are viewed as incompatible with federal goals of promoting AI innovation.
However, exactly which states or specific statutes the Task Force may target remains unclear.
Multiple states have enacted legislation regulating AI use in hiring, recruitment, and employment decisions to reduce discriminatory outcomes:
The California Consumer Privacy Act (effective January 1, 2026) requires businesses using AI without human involvement in employment decisions to prepare risk assessments, provide pre-use notice, and permit opt-out rights.
Colorado, Illinois, and Texas: Similar AI employment laws take effect in 2026.
Maryland: Has passed comparable legislation targeting AI usage in employment.
Read more via LaborEmploymentLawBlog.com, The White House, Colorado State Legislature, California State Legislature, Texas State Legislature, Illinois State Legislature, Maryland Department of Labor
In Europe, workers are facing a weakening labor market, plagued by both a decline in manufacturing and economic uncertainty. While labor market momentum is slowing, AI anxiety is on the rise.
Labor market momentum slows:
The eurozone's labor market is projected to grow just 0.6% in 2026, down from 0.7% in 2025, according to the European Central Bank. Each 0.1 percentage point decline represents approximately 163,000 fewer new jobs.
Germany's industrial sector has lost over 120,000 positions due to high energy costs, weak export demand, and Chinese competition. More than one in three German companies plans to cut jobs this year, according to the IW economic think tank.
France expects unemployment to climb to 7.8%, while UK economists project unemployment could rise to 5.5% from 5.1%. Poland's unemployment reached 5.6% in November, up from 5% a year earlier.
AI anxiety grows despite slow European adoption:
25% of European workers fear AI could put their jobs at risk, while 74% believe firms will need smaller headcounts due to the technology, according to an EY study.
Germany's Institute for Employment Research projects 1.6 million jobs could be reshaped or lost to AI by 2040, with high-skilled positions disproportionately affected.
Read more via DW
While layoffs in China "tend to be less visible and smaller in scale" than in the U.S., AI is already "disrupting a range of industries" in China, according to Nikkei.
According to McKinsey, more than one-third (36%) of employers in China are "expecting workforce reduction due to AI over the coming years." McKinsey found that 21% of surveyed employers anticipate "AI to lead to workforce decreases of 11% or more in the next year."
Large employers in China including Tencent and Baidu say "AI now contributes to over 50% of their new code generation."
Some employers are now able to use more junior employees to fill roles that used to require more experience. AI is helping those less experienced employees "perform the same tasks," while “allowing companies to reduce costs.”
Read more via Nikkei
McKinsey has 60,000 workers, but only 40,000 of them are human: McKinsey CEO Bob Sternfels said the consulting firm now operates with a workforce of 60,000, consisting of 40,000 humans and approximately 20,000 AI agents added in under two years. Sternfels stated the firm is "rapidly remaking itself around artificial intelligence," with AI agents now comprising nearly 40% of McKinsey's total workforce. (Business Insider)
Google's new AI shopping agents are already being deployed by major retail chains: Google launched Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, a new suite of AI tools enabling retailers to deploy shopping and customer service agents, with major chains including Lowe's, Kroger and Papa Johns already testing the technology. Kroger's chief digital officer warned that companies not already invested in AI agents risk creating a "competitive barrier or disadvantage" as AI-assisted shopping accelerates. The shopping agents can understand shopper context like time constraints and meal plans while incorporating customer data on price sensitivity and brand preferences. (The Wall Street Journal)
Anthropic's new AI agent will organize your mess of files: Anthropic launched Cowork, a new AI agent that allows non-technical users to have Claude read, edit, and create files within a designated computer folder without coding skills. The feature was built in about a week and a half using Claude Code itself, after Anthropic observed developers repurposing the coding tool for tasks like vacation research and recovering wedding photos. Available exclusively to Claude Max subscribers ($100-$200/month), Cowork can reorganize files, generate expense spreadsheets from receipts, or draft reports from scattered notes. (Venturebeat)
Agentic AI poses new cybersecurity threats: AI agents present an increasing risk when it comes to data breaches, according to Experian’s Data Breach Industry Forecast. Experian warned that agentic AI systems "could be exploited by savvy hackers." Hackers could "inject their AI agents" as part of an effort to disrupt the orchestration or governance of the victim’s AI agents." What impact could this have? Experian's report suggests that "at a minimum, this disruption could impact an organization’s operations or siphon money, goods, or information." The use of AI agents by hackers could result in a "potentially massive spike in identity theft," among other things. (Insurance Journal, Experian Data Breach Industry Forecast)
