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gettyIt feels like AI is everywhere—and while the technology is certainly a hot topic, it’s good to remember how few people have actually used it. The Pew Research Center released eye-opening data this week showing that in February, only 23% of U.S. adults say they’ve ever used ChatGPT, the popular chatbot from OpenAI. While that’s up from 18% in July, it’s still less than a quarter of the population. Just 6% of people over the age of 65 have given the chatbot a try.
Yet when people are using AI, it’s often for work. The share of employed Americans who’ve used ChatGPT jumped from 12% in July to 20% in February 2024, Pew found, the largest share compared with the other uses they’re tracking, such as entertainment or learning something new. Nearly a third of employed Americans under the age of 30 have used AI at work. It’s becoming clearer that those who use AI could have a leg up in advancing their careers, and companies will need to quickly train people—from freelancers to CEOs— to use these new skills.
It makes sense, of course, that work is the most-used application people are finding for AI—most of us want to do less of it, or at least find ways to hand off the most boring parts of it. A global pandemic that prompted many Americans to reassess the role of work in their lives has many organizations giving more weight to balance, mental health and burnout—whether that be with tools like AI assistants or new policies for time off. I chatted this week with the coaching company Exos about the results of their four-day workweek pilot, and how it’s helped employees. Note: They don’t call Fridays “off” days, but “you do you” days—the one rule is no interacting with coworkers, whether in email or meetings.
Sounds like a rule many people could get behind. Hope it’s a great week.
LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
GE was long considered the ultimate “academy” company, training leaders and evaluating performance in ways that were widely copied by management teams across corporate America. But after a financial crisis, costly acquisitions and years of underperformance, CEO Larry Culp is reaching the denouement of his successful breakup of the most famous American conglomerate—the splitting of GE’s power business from its jet engine unit—and seeing a payday to match. Forbes’ Jeremy Bogaisky estimates Culp, the former CEO of Danaher, will join a small club of 15 U.S. chief executives who have amassed 10-figure fortunes. What does Culp’s big payday say about where CEO compensation could go from here?
LABOR & LAYOFFS
Sega of America employees became the first major U.S. video game company to ratify a union contract, securing a union agreement Tuesday that includes wage increases, notifications ahead of job cuts, severance for layoffs, advance notice of planned use of AI in the workplace and a commitment to hybrid work for at least six months. The contract follows a spurt of layoffs that have enveloped the gaming industry in recent months, Forbes’ Antonio Pequeño IV reports.
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
Forbes 2018 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur listers Yusuf Sherwani, Maroof Ahmed and Sarim Siddiqui are rethinking the rehab experience for drug and alcohol misuse with virtual clinic Pelago: Instead of traveling to a physical location, patients can get treatment via a mobile app. Employers appear to like the idea for its cost-savings—companies like AT&T and American Eagle pay Pelago a fee per employee treated to offer its services as a benefit to their workforce—and investors appear to like the business. Pelago recently announced $58 million in new funding, reports Zoya Hasan.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence is disrupting how people work in industry after industry, from customer service and law to recruiting and voiceover acting. Forbes’ Amy Feldman has the scoop on a new software startup, Vizcom, that raised $20 million to help industrial designers do their jobs more efficiently, already boasting corporate clients that include Ford and New Balance and a funding round led by Index Ventures. Meanwhile, Rashi Shrivastava has funding news on Hume, an “emotionally intelligent” conversational AI that can interpret emotions based on how people are speaking—and could have big implications for customer service, employee coaching and other applications.
WHAT’S NEXT: EXOS CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER GREG HILL ON THE FOUR-DAY WEEK
Photo courtesy of Exos
Photo courtesy ExosCompanies that have experimented with four-day workweeks set up the concept in different ways. Some rotate rosters of workers through the approach, making every other Friday a day away from work. Others give “summer hours” on certain Fridays, making the four-day week a seasonal thing. Still others say it’s less about the day off, and more about having uninterrupted, “zero-meeting workdays” for getting things done.
At Exos, a fitness and coaching firm, the majority of employees work four days and then have what the company calls a “You Do You” Day—one where they can take time off, catch up on work, or attend to personal matters. The pilot started last spring for its 3,500 employees, with the majority getting a full day each week to plan as they want. The company, which says it works with about 25% of Fortune 100 companies, offers fitness coaching onsite at companies’ headquarters, as well as personal and leadership coaching to executives. (Coaches in the field unable to take a full day off each week get blocks of time for flexibility.)
Of course, Exos’ four-day week pilot helps highlight the company’s approach to well-being coaching, which promotes the idea of employees taking time for “strategic recovery”—whether for their bodies or their minds—when trying to improve their fitness or leadership skills. “Organizations started realizing we can’t fix our workplace issues if I don’t fix my people,” says Exos Chief People Officer Greg Hill. “The idea is bringing recovery into the organization through flexibility.”
Still, Exos measured its results—which have been analyzed by Wharton professor Adam Grant, Hill said, and shared exclusively with Forbes—and found real benefits that mirror what other research supporting four-day workweeks have shown. Following the addition of “You Do You Fridays,” for instance, Exos says 91% of workers think their time is spent effectively at work, compared with 64% before the pilot.
Meanwhile, they report seeing a 34-point reduction in the percentage of employees who felt burnout at least some of the time, falling from 70% before the pilot to 36% after. (Turnover rates also fell, though it’s worth noting the period overlapped with a cooling hiring market.)
“Flexibility in how you get your work done has been a real eye-opener,” says Hill. “We realized the world had changed. We felt like a lot of the conversation around this idea of more condensed work, and more intentional recovery … we realized there isn’t a choice.”
Hill says Exos has been able to make the four-day week arrangement work by focusing on “readiness” in their culture and taking intentional breaks. Exos encouraged “microbreaks” by limiting meetings to 25 or 50 minutes, and worked on improving meeting agendas and goals to boost efficiency. It also pushed for Tuesdays and Thursdays to be dedicated to meetings, while gearing Mondays and Wednesdays to individual work to help people avoid the “task switching” that can slow productivity.
When it comes to Fridays, workers don’t necessarily spend it on the beach—they can take it off, of course, or use it for family obligations, or catch up on work. “It could be doing a lot of independent work, it could be time with your family,” Hill says. “Our rule is you can’t engage with your coworkers”—email included.
For the majority of employees, people are still expected to work a week’s worth of work between Monday and Thursday, Hill says. For most, “we do not interact with one another on Fridays,” he said. “How you spend your day is your choice.”
FACTS AND COMMENT
Trying to decide whether to give workers a raise? Considering new benefits to help them buy a home? Keep this in mind: A first-time homebuyer must make at least $76,000 a year to afford a typical starter home in the U.S., according to a new study from Redfin.
- 8%: The percentage increase in annual income that first-time home buyers need from the year prior, as mortgage rates remain high and home prices rise.
- $240,000: The cost of average starter homes, defined by Redfin as homes with sale prices between the 5th and 35th percentile.
- “Rising prices and mortgage rates are pushing buyers who earn more than the median income to buy starter homes, and often pushing buyers who earn less money out of the market,” said Redfin Senior Economist Elijah de Campa.
VIDEO
Why The World’s Top Travel Brands Are Courting Indian Tourists
STRATEGIES & ADVICE
Here’s what the Boeing leadership shakeup teaches us about cultures with psychological safety.
Women’s history month just ended. Try these ideas for building better workplaces for women.
Hire better with ideas from these employers.
Feel like HR gets blamed too often? Here’s why.
QUIZ
Watching March Madness games during the workday has become a perennial—if exaggerated—concern for some managers. Meanwhile, for spectators, the tournament has become a lot more expensive. Tickets to the men’s championship game in Glendale, Arizona are selling for an average of $823 on the secondary market, while tickets are averaging $1,348 for the women’s title game in which city?
- Chicago
- Cleveland
- Buffalo
- Pittsburgh
Check to see if you got it right here.