This Microsoft report explores how AI is shaping work, with the fifth annual edition focussing on “collective productivity”, namely how teams, organisations and communities can get better together.
It provides research-backed insights into AI adoption, usage, its impact on work and labour markets, human-AI collaboration, and the effects of AI on cognition and thinking. The report finds that AI can bridge gaps of time, distance and scale but only if built correctly, requiring design that supports shared goals, group context and the norms of collaboration. It highlights that strategies focussed on augmentation and innovation can create new categories of work and value, driving positive-sum growth whereas automation-first approaches mainly remove cost from existing tasks.
