New data shows that office employees in the UK have spent on average 150 hours using AI over the course of the year. In 2024, that number is expected to rise.
A new study conducted by DeskTime found that Brits spent, on average, 150 hours over the course of 2023 using various AI-enabled tools. The most used tool was ChatGPT – the average British worker used it for 66.5 hours in 2023. Canva comes second, with Bing, DeepL, and GitHub taking 3rd, 4th, and 5th places, respectively.
150 hours spent a year is the equivalent of 19 workdays. In comparison, the average American used AI for 93 hours a year or 11 workdays, while the average employee from the EU countries – 175 hours per person or 22 workdays. The heaviest AI users in 2023 were from India, where workers spent 241 hours – equivalent to 30 workdays – on AI tools.
The data was collected by DeskTime, a time-tracking and productivity tool used by over 200,000 businesses around the world. The study reflects the growing prevalence of AI in the workplace, and the list of top AI apps also highlights the race for existing tools to implement AI.
“We’re currently witnessing the rise of the age of AI. Not only are we witnessing the mass market entry of AI technology, but we’re also seeing a race for existing tools to jump on the trend by implementing AI functionality as a bid to stay relevant. Moreover, we’re seeing the global workforce becoming heavy adopters of AI tools. If this year’s data looks like a lot, businesses should be aware that this statistic is likely only to grow in the coming years.” – Artis Rozentals, CEO of DeskTime
The rise of AI has coincided with job uncertainty, with companies such as IBM and Klarna instituting hiring freezes to evaluate how AI can increase company results without increasing human resources.
However, the data shows that far from employees becoming afraid of AI replacing them, they have become heavy users of AI-enabled tools. For example, Europe’s average of 22 workdays and India’s average of 30 workdays spent using only AI tools demonstrates that AI is becoming an indispensable tool for the average employee, overlaying their everyday tasks with an AI layer.
In its first year of adoption, we’re seeing relatively high rates of use, with ChatGPT reaching 1 million users in just 5 days, thereby setting a record for the fastest-growing user base. It is likely that as the technology continues to mature, the penetration into the workforce will only deepen. The implications of a hybrid human-AI workforce could mean that in the future, no deliverable piece of work will have been created without the use of AI.