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What Employees Really Do with ChatGPT at Work: Writing Tops, Editing Dominates

OpenAI: 27% of daily ChatGPT messages are work-related (47% last year). Writing leads-mostly editing and translating; HR should enable safe workflows and decision support.

Categorized in: AI News Human Resources
Published on: Sep 30, 2025
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What Employees Really Do with ChatGPT at Work: Writing Tops, Editing Dominates

What employees really use AI for at work - and how HR can turn it into real productivity

A new OpenAI report offers a clear snapshot of how employees actually use ChatGPT on the job. In June 2025, 27% of daily ChatGPT messages were work-related, down from 47% a year earlier - a shift driven by changing usage patterns within existing users, not a wave of new non-work users.

The headline: writing is the dominant work use case. And most of that "writing" isn't starting from zero - it's editing, improving, translating, and tightening what people already wrote.

The top use cases, by share of work messages

  • Writing: 40% (about two-thirds is editing, critiquing, translating)
  • Practical guidance: 24.1%
  • Information-seeking: 13.5%
  • Technical help: 10.0%

These patterns are consistent across very different occupations. The common thread: decision support. The report argues ChatGPT boosts output by improving decision quality, especially in knowledge-heavy roles. Think "co-pilot" that advises rather than a "co-worker" that fully replaces tasks.

What this means for HR

  • Focus enablement on editing and decision support. Provide templates, checklists, and prompts that help employees refine existing drafts and weigh options faster.
  • Standardize safe, repeatable workflows. Because use cases look similar across jobs, HR can roll out common practices for writing, research, and task guidance that apply org-wide.
  • Position AI as assistive. Set expectations: human judgment stays in the loop; AI accelerates thinking and drafting.

High-impact HR applications you can deploy now

  • Writing/editing: polish job ads, offer letters, policy updates, and employee comms; convert long docs into summaries; translate messages for global teams.
  • Practical guidance: draft onboarding checklists, coaching tips for managers, interview rubrics, meeting agendas, and 1:1 frameworks. Route legal or sensitive issues to the right experts.
  • Information-seeking: generate FAQs from internal docs, summarize survey findings, and surface relevant policy excerpts. Always verify critical outputs.
  • Technical help: get spreadsheet formulas, text classifiers for open-ended survey responses, and simple automation ideas for HRIS workflows - without exposing PII.

Guardrails HR should enforce

  • Data protection: prohibit sharing PII, health data, or confidential financials. Use approved tools with enterprise controls.
  • Human review: require sign-off for all external comms, policy changes, and legal-adjacent content.
  • Prompt standards: provide approved prompts for common tasks (job posts, policy edits, internal memos) and a checklist for verifying output.
  • Attribution and bias checks: cite sources for factual claims; scan for biased language in job ads and performance inputs.
  • Logging and monitoring: track use by function and task type to spot wins, gaps, and risk patterns.

A 30-day enablement plan

  • Week 1: inventory use cases by team; identify 5-7 high-frequency tasks per function.
  • Week 2: publish policy, PII rules, and a prompt library; ship 10 reusable templates.
  • Week 3: run a pilot with 2-3 teams; host office hours; collect examples and pitfalls.
  • Week 4: measure time saved and quality gains; iterate templates; prep org-wide rollout.

Metrics that matter

  • Time saved per draft, analysis, or summary
  • Quality: fewer revisions, higher clarity scores, fewer tone issues
  • Adoption: % of employees using approved tools and templates
  • Rework rate: AI-assisted drafts needing major edits
  • Risk: incidents involving sensitive data or factual errors
  • Sentiment: manager and employee feedback on usefulness

Workforce impact

Adoption is growing and some firms are publicly considering future headcount changes as AI integrates further. HR's role: guide responsible use, elevate decision quality, and upskill people so they stay productive and relevant.

Upskill your teams

If you need structured, role-based enablement and prompt libraries for HR, see these resources:

Source

This article is based on a new OpenAI analysis of internal ChatGPT message data on personal and workplace use. For related research, visit OpenAI Research.