AI could help make a 4-day workweek happen, says expert: 'I absolutely think so'

As companies around the world experiment with a four-day workweek, employees continue to weigh in on their interest in the concept. An overwhelming majority, 81% of young people support a four-day workweek, according to a 2024 CNBC and Generation Lab poll of 1,033 Americans aged 18-34.

At the same time, the advent of AI tools like Microsoft Copilot could help workers hike productivity on the job. About 53% of knowledge workers' time is spent on busy work, says Rebecca Hinds, head of the Work Innovation Lab by Asana. That is the "scheduling of meetings, the attending of meetings, the coordinating of work. And AI has massive, massive potential to automate that busy work."

With so much promise around how much of employees' workload AI could cut, is it possible the tech could usher in a four-day workweek sometime in the future?

"I absolutely think so," says Kelly Daniel, prompt director at AI creation company Lazarus AI. She adds that "AI models are getting 'smarter.' They're getting more capable. The ability to tailor them to a unique experience is getting faster, easier, cheaper."

Other experts agree — with caveats that at lot of this depends on company-wide decision making. Here's how AI could play into the four-day workweek.

To begin with, while individuals are already starting to see the benefits of using some AI tools, the success of these tools is not evenly distributed.

"If you're using AI every day, 89% of those workers report productivity gains," says Hinds. But, she adds, "if you're only using AI every month or every week, you're significantly less likely to report productivity gains."

That makes it hard for organizations to assess how effective this tech really is and make decisions for their workforces accordingly. "In order for a different type of work arrangement to really work," Hinds says about a four-day workweek, "everyone is going to need to be getting some benefit from the technology and be able to use the technology effectively."

Until there's widescale adoption across both individuals and teams, there likely won't be any change to flexible work styles. "I think organizations are comfortable with status quo," she says.

If there does come a time when companies have widely adopted this tech and seen the kind of uptick in productivity which could make the argument for a shorter week, the result could play out in different ways.

Some companies could say "we expect you to have the same amount of productivity per week," says Mark Riedl, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "And if you can do that in four days instead of five, that's great. Go home."

Others, however, could say in place of the busy work AI can take over "you should just shift your time to more meaningful work and still work as much because there's always too much work to be done," he says.

And others, still, could use the advent of AI to cut some jobs altogether, which might mean their colleagues take over that work. "I don't imagine we have too many jobs that would be 100% replaced," says Reidl, but some companies may find they "can get away with doing the same amount of work with fewer people," he says.

Ultimately, how the advent of AI plays out for workers will likely "vary business to business based on their goals and their needs," says Daniel.

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