How AI could transform Australia and see most full-time professionals only work a four-day week

A new report predicts that artificial intelligence could boost Australia’s sluggish productivity and full-time professionals could typically work four days a week.

Deloitte Access Economics calculated that workers already using AI saved five hours and 18 minutes a week, and predicted that AI was likely to “immediately disrupt” a quarter of the Australian economy.

If this trend continues, AI could “make the four-day work week a reality” and make the five-day week a thing of the past.

Deloitte Access Economics and the Deloitte AI Institute say individual employee output is likely to rise: 32 percent of staff surveyed are already using AI at work, often without telling their manager.

“Let’s face it, this incredible productivity tool will drive disruption on an unprecedented scale,” said the report from lead Deloitte partners Kellie Nuttall and John O’Mahony.

“By increasing productivity, this creative intelligence is driving society forward like never before.”

Generative AI, where people ask a computer model questions or give it tasks, is now being considered a cure for Australia’s poor productivity during a cost-of-living crisis.

“The productivity improvements enabled by Gen AI could dramatically increase the number of employers adopting the four-day work week – with the potential to minimize repetitive and time-consuming tasks,” the report said.

AI is expected to immediately disrupt a quarter of the Australian economy, representing $600 billion in gross domestic product, with the financial, information technology, media and professional services industries most likely to be immediately affected.

“The power of Generation AI lies in its monumental ability to revolutionize work, business and society at large: rapidly questioning and transforming the way we work, do business, live and learning,” the report said.

“In fact, it creates a deeper relationship between people and technology than the internet, the smartphone and the cloud did before.”

Australia’s poor productivity has worried economists for the past decade.

When workers produce less but receive large wage increases, companies often have to pass the cost on to consumers to compensate for high inflation, keeping inflation high.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe lamented in June that productivity had not improved in four years.

“Unfortunately, productivity growth has been weak in recent times,” he said.

“Indeed, the production level per hour worked in Australia today is the same as at the end of 2019.”

Productivity growth has remained below 1 percent for the past ten years, a level well below the 2 percent seen in the 1990s.

Deloitte’s survey of 2,000 employees and 550 college students found that 32 percent of respondents used some form of AI for their work, while nearly two-thirds of them did so without telling their manager.

Deloitte Access Economics calculated that workers already using AI saved five hours and 18 minutes a week, and predicted that AI was likely to “immediately disrupt” a quarter of the Australian economy (pictured is a stock photo)

Young workers ages 18 to 24 were three times more likely to use generative AI compared to mid-career workers aged 45 and older, according to survey results compiled in May by market researcher Ipsos.

AI can generate new data or create images or music with input or guidance from humans.

ChatGPT, a major language modeling software, is the most advanced, while Snapchat’s AI app is so flawed that Queen Elizabeth II is still considered Australia’s head of state, even though she died a year ago this week.

In terms of the shorter working week, France introduced a four-day, 35-hour working week in 2000, but workers often worked longer hours.

AI could change that and make a four-day week a practical possibility, but only if Australia did more to embrace this technological revolution.

“Australia ranks second to last of the 14 leading economies in terms of Gen AI deployment,” the report said.

Deloitte’s report addressed concerns about “potential leaks of sensitive and personal information” and “misuse or unethical uses.”

But no research was done into the possible job losses, instead the word ‘disrupt’ was used 43 times to talk about possible changes in the labor market.