AI advancements could see millions work four-day week on the same pay

A close up of artificial intelligence brain with a futuristic graphical user interface in network connection space (Picture: Getty)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements could see millions of people working a four-day week with the same pay in the next ten years, according to a new report.

Around 28% of the nation’s workforce (8.8m employees) are set to work 32 hours a week full time by 2033, figures published by independent research organisation, Autonomy, has revealed.

Eight local authorities where workers are most likely to move to a four-day week have been identified, all in the south-east.

Five are in the capital, including the City of London, Wandsworth, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Richmond upon Thames.

They are joined by St Albans in Hertfordshire, Wokingham in Berkshire and Elmbridge in Surrey.

‘All of these local authorities hold the potential for 38% or more of their workforces to move to a four-day week using AI augmentation over the next decade,’ the Autonomy report said.  

The research, using data from the International Monetary Fund and Goldman Sachs, pointed to an improvement in worker productivity while maintaining pay and performance, particularly in desk-based jobs.

The introduction of the technology to lower working hours could also reduce widespread mental health illnesses and physical ailments associated with overwork, the report found – creating more time for ‘democracy, leisure consumption and social cohesion’.  

‘In the case of the UK – where work-related stress, anxiety and depression constitute one of the most significant labour market issues today – these wellbeing factors cannot be emphasised enough,’ the report said.  

Up to 88% of workers – almost 28million – across Britain could see their working hours reduced by at least 10% if Large Language Models (LLM) are introduced.

LLMs are a type of AI trained to create whole sentences, paragraphs and even essays.

They were initially developed to predict language but have also been trained to be used in a wide variety of applications, from customer service chatbots to personal assistants and friends to lonely people.

In London, 89% of the workforce could see their hours reduced by at least 10% due to AI-productivity gains.

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