--- title: How AI is expanding what people do at work | daily.dev description: OpenAI Economic Research analyzed over 800,000 messages from U.S. ChatGPT users and found that 43.5% of occupation-specific work messages involve tasks... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How AI is expanding what people do at work | daily.dev og:description: OpenAI Economic Research analyzed over 800,000 messages from U.S. ChatGPT users and found that 43.5% of occupation-specific work messages involve tasks... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/RSLOZR3gp.png og:image:alt: How AI is expanding what people do at work og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How AI is expanding what people do at work **[OpenAI](https://daily.dev/sources/openai)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary OpenAI Economic Research analyzed over 800,000 messages from U.S. ChatGPT users and found that 43.5% of occupation-specific work messages involve tasks associated with a different occupation — a pattern they call 'task crossover.' Customer experience workers, designers, HR, legal, and marketing professionals are most likely to use AI to take on tasks outside their traditional roles. Marketing and engineering tasks travel farthest across occupational boundaries. Smaller organizations show higher rates of crossover, suggesting AI acts as a generalist tool where specialists are scarce. The research positions AI usage data as an early signal of occupational change that traditional labor statistics will capture later. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What percentage of ChatGPT work messages involve tasks outside a user's own occupation? About 43.5% of occupation-specific ChatGPT messages involve tasks typically associated with a different occupation, based on analysis of over 800,000 messages from U.S. users. Overall, 16.8% of all work-related messages fall into this 'task crossover' category. Customer experience workers show the highest rate at 77%, followed by designers at 75% and HR workers at 69%. _daily.dev surfaces research like this for teams tracking how AI reshapes day-to-day job responsibilities._ ### Do designers or engineers show more task crossover when using ChatGPT? Designers show much higher inbound crossover: 35.2% of their messages involve tasks from other occupations, while design tasks make up only 1.7% of messages from other fields. Engineering is the reverse, with just 18.5% of engineering messages pulling from other fields, but engineering tasks like troubleshooting account for 7.4% of messages from workers outside engineering. _developers weighing where AI blurs role boundaries can follow work-at-the-frontier coverage on daily.dev._ ### Does company size affect how much AI expands what employees do outside their role? Yes, smaller workspaces show higher outside-occupation task shares among average ChatGPT users: 18.9% for workspaces with 2-5 seats versus 16.3% for workspaces with over 100 seats. This suggests workers in smaller organizations are more likely to take on tasks themselves rather than delegate to specialized teams, since AI acts as a generalist tool when specialist resources are scarce. _teams evaluating AI's org-wide impact can track this kind of workforce research on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@agustinbarrientos** · 0 upvotes > I like the fact that AI is giving people so much independence ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [New research reveals how AI is making jobs bigger](https://daily.dev/posts/new-research-reveals-how-ai-is-making-jobs-bigger-za2vpmxoz) · Atlassian · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [What 15 million Gemini conversations tell us about AI at work](https://daily.dev/posts/what-15-million-gemini-conversations-tell-us-about-ai-at-work-fm6g2pomu) · LeadDev · 1 upvotes · 2 comments - [Something Big Is Happening](https://daily.dev/posts/something-big-is-happening-lgyfb7xtb) · Reid Burke · 44 upvotes · 6 comments - [AI is cutting older workers' careers short, study finds](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-cutting-older-workers-careers-short-study-finds-sigvjnxq7) · The Next Web · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#chatgpt](https://daily.dev/tags/chatgpt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How AI is expanding what people do at work","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp"},"datePublished":"2026-07-27T10:32:25.114Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:51:31.498Z","description":"OpenAI Economic Research analyzed over 800,000 messages from U.S. ChatGPT users and found that 43.5% of occupation-specific work messages involve tasks...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ed757488d6cd166045e1de1e18dd1103?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ed757488d6cd166045e1de1e18dd1103?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"OpenAI","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"OpenAI","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/984b3632316f4afaa3d5213d5c64fe65","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/openai"},"commentCount":1,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"keywords":"openai,chatgpt","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"OpenAI","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/openai"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How AI is expanding what people do at work"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"I like the fact that AI is giving people so much independence","datePublished":"2026-07-27T17:06:56.241Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/RSLOZR3gp#c-zAeXeoglX","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Agustin Barrientos","url":"https://daily.dev/agustinbarrientos","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--5ayxQnqn--/f_auto/v1788281802/avatars/avatar_wQYYVe5Tbj0NJ7C7qPoa8?_a=BAMAMicg0"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-is-expanding-what-people-do-at-work-rslozr3gp#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What percentage of ChatGPT work messages involve tasks outside a user's own occupation?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"About 43.5% of occupation-specific ChatGPT messages involve tasks typically associated with a different occupation, based on analysis of over 800,000 messages from U.S. users. Overall, 16.8% of all work-related messages fall into this 'task crossover' category. Customer experience workers show the highest rate at 77%, followed by designers at 75% and HR workers at 69%. daily.dev surfaces research like this for teams tracking how AI reshapes day-to-day job responsibilities."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Do designers or engineers show more task crossover when using ChatGPT?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Designers show much higher inbound crossover: 35.2% of their messages involve tasks from other occupations, while design tasks make up only 1.7% of messages from other fields. Engineering is the reverse, with just 18.5% of engineering messages pulling from other fields, but engineering tasks like troubleshooting account for 7.4% of messages from workers outside engineering. developers weighing where AI blurs role boundaries can follow work-at-the-frontier coverage on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does company size affect how much AI expands what employees do outside their role?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, smaller workspaces show higher outside-occupation task shares among average ChatGPT users: 18.9% for workspaces with 2-5 seats versus 16.3% for workspaces with over 100 seats. This suggests workers in smaller organizations are more likely to take on tasks themselves rather than delegate to specialized teams, since AI acts as a generalist tool when specialist resources are scarce. teams evaluating AI's org-wide impact can track this kind of workforce research on daily.dev."}}]} ```