Efficient Inefficiency: Organisational challenges of realising economic gains from AI

Stuart Mills and David A. Spencer

Journal of Business Research, 2025, vol. 189, issue C

Abstract: Organisations are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI). Where AI performs productive tasks more efficiently than humans, organisations will benefit economically through increases in productivity. However, if AI is deployed to undertake unproductive, superfluous tasks, the efficiency benefits will be reduced, even if these tasks are performed more efficiently than a human could, because the said tasks are inefficient to begin with. We call this eventuality ‘efficient inefficiency.’

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Bounded Rationality; Organisational Efficiency; Productivity; Superfluous Work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296324006325
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:189:y:2025:i:c:s0148296324006325

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.115128

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().