Business psychologist Jess Barker says it is easy to understand why so many of us don't like work meetings. "The data suggests, as does our experience, that most meetings are time consuming and ineffectual." She is also "not convinced that the general level of frustration will disappear altogether" thanks to AI. "I think we may find that we continue to be frustrated with meetings, but for different reasons - such as, annoyance with person A who never shows up to the Monday morning meeting, but instead requests that the AI tool attend on their behalf. "Or frustration with the person who turns up late to every meeting, and uses the AI tool to update on what they've missed so far. I can see how this could result in increased resentment and mistrust between colleagues." Yet Microsoft's Ms Teevan is convinced that AI will help to improve meetings. "It can help people feel less overwhelmed, it can help them get started and check things off their list.

Artificial intelligence is creating increasingly sophisticated images. But what does it mean for the art world? For more than 30,000 years we have been the only art-making species on Earth, give or take the odd paint-throwing Neanderthal or chimpanzee. Art is the oldest and most spectacular triumph of human consciousness, from Lascaux to the Sistine Chapel. But a new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) art software may be about to end that. It will whip you up a Picasso or a Turner in an instant, or apply their styles to any theme you picture, from Liz Truss dancing in a supermarket to a brawl in a 1970s disco.

Digital labour is still very much on the agenda, Nash Squared's Digital Leadership Report reveals. Among the digital leaders that we surveyed from countries around the world, the average expectation is that nearly one in six (16%) of the workforce will be automated in the next five years – a similar percentage to the pre-pandemic results in 2019. More broadly, almost a third of digital leaders (29%) believe automation will be critical for gaining a competitive advantage over the next 12 months. Although growing at a slower pace than in previous years, the worldwide market for robotic process automation (RPA) is expected to experience double-digit growth in 2023, growing 17.5% year on year, according to Gartner research. Automation has become more widely used by enterprises, with the most common areas being IT (40% of digital leaders report some usage here), finance (31%), customer support (29%) and human resources (28%).

When I started working as a mainframe operator in IT in 1988, I felt like I was part of a secret club. None of my family understood what I was doing; my friends would ask, "what's a mainframe and why do you have to work nights?" My onboarding took months, and a typical workday began with staring at a blank screen. Since mainframes didn't come with a mouse, I would enter memorized commands like " 3.4" and "Sys3.AF*" to navigate the data sets I needed to find. I don't think many workers today would put up with that.

Our experts reveal where leaders should focus their efforts in 2020 and beyond. At the beginning of a new year (and a new decade), it's natural to wonder what's ahead. As technology and society continue to rapidly transform, it can also be overwhelming for managers and organizations to think about what to tackle next. With that in mind, we turned to recent authors at MIT Sloan Management Review and asked them: As we enter the 2020s, what is one critical area where leaders and organizations should focus their efforts? The research and diverse expertise of our surveyed experts provides useful insights into the specific skills, investments, and processes that will help companies compete, thrive, and provide value for stakeholders in the years to come.

Technology is a blessing and a curse for the modern office worker. Lightning-fast computers make the impossible possible. But constant distraction and friction slows work down. Workers are bombarded with a steady stream of emails, instant messages and requirements to log onto different systems to do such basic tasks as requesting vacation and filing expense reports. Citrix Systems, which makes workplace platforms used by about 100 million people every day, is trying to improve the office technology experience by bringing a Facebook-like newsfeed to your work computer and smartphone.

New York (CNN Business)Technology is a blessing and a curse for the modern office worker. Lightning-fast computers make the impossible possible. But constant distraction and friction slows work down. Workers are bombarded with a steady stream of emails, instant messages and requirements to log onto different systems to do such basic tasks as requesting vacation and filing expense reports. Citrix Systems (CTXS), which makes workplace platforms used by about 100 million people every day, is trying to improve the office technology experience by bringing a Facebook-like newsfeed to your work computer and smartphone.

By integrating with dozens of Microsoft (MSFT), SAP (SAP), Google and Salesforce (CRM) apps, the workspace will allow workers to complete such routine tasks as approving contracts, registering for training courses and submitting purchase orders directly from their newsfeeds. They won't need to log onto (or even and remember the passwords to) those outside systems. Citrix said its machine learning technology will help automate certain tasks and anticipate others. The newsfeed will include meeting reminders, pop-up notifications about new hires and information about vacation requests. Managers can dive into expense reports and accept or reject them without leaving the system.

One of the beauties of cloud solutions is the opportunity they offer for immediate feedback towards product improvement. Oracle understands this challenge very well, having implemented thousands of enhancements over the past year--with the vast majority of them based on customer opinion. Never let it be said that your voice doesn't matter. The suggestions and ideas offered by customers are among the most important building blocks of a modern HR solution. Oracle's ongoing dialogue with customers ensures that the resulting software resolves the real-world issues that HR professionals grapple with daily.

Conditions in Amazon's warehouses are notoriously grueling, but the company has a new tactic it thinks will make employees' lives easier: turn work into a video game. As detailed in a new report from The Washington Post, Amazon has started installing screens next to workers' stations that feature simple games with names like PicksInSpace, Mission Racer, and CastleCrafter. Their physical actions, assembling orders and moving items, are translated into virtual in-game moves. So, the faster someone picks items and places them in a box, for example, the faster their car will move around a virtual track. The games are intended to make work less tedious, but also encourage higher productivity by pitting workers against one another in the virtual game world.