Queue & AI: When Faster Tasks Slow Down the Workflow (opens in new tab)

Quantifying the workplace productivity effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence is now central to economics, management, and public policy. The deployment of AI tools in customer service, writing, software development, and consulting operations has been reported to generate large per-task productivity gains, typically measured as tasks completed per worker-hour or reductions in mean handle time. We argue that such mean-based metrics can mis...