2025 was unquestionably the year of the AI boom at work. When generative AI like ChatGPT entered the scene a few years ago, it started as a novelty. Early adapters saw its potential to change the way we work, but for most people it was a way to rewrite Keats’s poetry in pirate speak, or remix their favorite memes.
But in 2025 AI rolled into offices everywhere, taking up residence as the boss who set performance goals, the on-call therapist-cum-coach, and the silent brainstorm partner. A McKinsey study found that 33% of organizations used genAI at work in 2023, and 55% used AI. This year, that leapt to 79% and 88% respectively. Here are five ways AI changed work in 2025.
1. The AI job application
Not only is AI changing how we do our jobs, it’s changing how we get our jobs. AI generated résumés submitted on LinkedIn surged by 45% this year. Job candidates are also using AI to find companies to apply to and help them network.
In parallel, overwhelmed by all the AI generated applications, HR departments are using AI to help them keep up. Three-fourths of hiring managers say they use AI to schedule interviews, and over 90% use AI to screen résumés. While interviewing still remains the domain of humans, about 25% of companies are using AI interviewers. Researcher Brian Jabarian even found that AI interviewers are more likely to result in increased job offers. They also improve 30-day job retention by 17% for industries that hire at a high volume, such as customer service.
2. AI as the superstar employee
AI arrived on the scene as the perfect employee. It does not ask for a salary or raises, it does not care about getting promoted, and it won’t steal someone’s lunch from the break room. Instead, it can do the automatic, repetitive work that’s present in every job that eats up hours of the week offering very little intellectual satisfaction in return.
In fact, even as companies waffled on how to train employees on how to use AI and what their AI policies should be, employees took matters into their own hands and figured out how to use AI to make their jobs easier. About 80% of employees at small and medium-size companies were using their own AI tools at work giving rise to BYOAI: bring your own AI.
AI has also reduced the barrier to entry for founders: instead of hiring a fleet of programmers, vibe code. Instead of sinking hours into finding client contact information, get AI to suggest leads.
3. The silent copilot
Not only is AI the superstar employee, it’s the perfect confidante since it won’t gossip. As such, AI also became the silent copilot who helped workers brush up on their soft skills and stress test their ideas without judgement. In an informal survey Fast Company conducted of employees using LinkedIn, workers reported using AI to organize documents, brainstorm ideas, challenge assumptions, summarize meeting notes, and prioritize tasks. Employees are even asking AI what kind of health insurance they should get.
It’s not just employees: leaders are using AI to up their game. Studies show that 85% of new managers don’t receive training. AI quietly stepped in to fill the gap. James Cross, cofounder of Tenor, an AI leadership company, noted that “managers are often more receptive to AI feedback,” because “there’s no emotion attached to it.”
4. The rise of workslop
AI might be the best employee but it’s also the worst employee because it knows not what it does. While AI can generate work, that doesn’t mean it understands what it’s doing. 2025 might have seen the ascendance of AI at work, but it also saw the ascendance of AI generated “workslop.” Stanford researchers found that 40% of employees reported receiving “AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”
Meanwhile, in July, MIT published a report that found that while companies were investing billions of dollars in AI, 95% of companies had found no return on their AI investments. Worse, OpenAI’s research found that their models can lie deliberately. AI promises to work easier, but workers may find instead of kicking back, they have a new job: sorting through piles of AI generated trash.
5. AI took all the jobs, or did it just get blamed for it?
In addition to being the superstar employee, AI is also everyone’s favorite scapegoat. It’s getting blamed for replacing all the jobs for good reason. First, 2025 was a rough year for layoffs, with layoff announcements totaling over one million. Second, CEOs pinned the blame on AI. Understandably, as wave after wave of layoffs have swept through corporate America, nearly a third of employees say that they think AI will lead to fewer job opportunities.
However, experts point out there’s little evidence AI is replacing workers—AI’s impact on the workforce is comparable to earlier technological disruptions such as the rise of the PC and the internet. In a rocky economy, where companies are struggling to trim back, “it makes companies look good to their shareholders, to suggest ‘we are deploying AI so well [that] we are now cutting our labor costs’,” Molly Kinder, a Brookings senior fellow, told Fast Company.