A new survey commissioned by employment screening service Checkr found that a large majority of American workers are concerned about the introduction of AI in the workplace. The survey polled 3,000 employed workers across the age spectrum—Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Z—between April 27 and 28, 2023, and found that 79% of all groups were fearful or unsure of potential pay cuts due to AI. In addition, 78% of workers were uncertain if AI could drive wages down, and 74% believed jobs would be lost due to AI within the upcoming two years.
Nevertheless, many American workers believe that AI could work in their favor, as it could relieve their workload and allow them to work fewer hours without an accompanying sacrifice in pay. Over half of all workers said they’d accept a pay cut in exchange for a four-day workweek—with 86% saying they’d accept a 10% pay cut to work less hours. Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers were all willing to take a 10% cut, while Gen Zs were the most willing to do so—they said they’d accept a 15% cut.
One study from 2020 of 5,000 customer support agents at Fortune 500 companies in the Philippines further affirms that AI implementation has positive effects, as it observed that the lowest-skilled agents saw a 35% jump in productivity when they had AI assistance in responding to customer inquiries and other tasks.
Checkr is a San Francisco-based employment screening service founded in 2012 by Kris Bowden, Daniel Yanisse, and Jonathan Perichon. The company’s mission is to build a more equitable hiring process through an intuitive user experience, modern technology, and transparent data. It provides background check solutions to employers for use in pre-employment bios and to individuals to ensure accuracy of their capacity report.
Kris Bowden is the CEO of Checkr and a serial entrepreneur, having founded eight software companies since 1997. He is a founding partner at Bolt, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage software companies. Bowden is a graduate of Purdue University and a former NASA engineer. A leader in the fintech and startup community, Bowden has been recognized by some of the world’s most respected video conferences and magazines.
