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Good morning 👋
Gartner on where the time AI saves goes, Barclays' plan to cut 5,000 jobs, and a quick way to see where your own team's saved hours went.
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In today’s UPSKILL
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Where the time AI frees up goes |
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Barclays plans 5,000 job cuts, mostly in support roles |
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Tip of the week: find out where saved hours went |
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Role plugins in Copilot Cowork, Slides in ChatGPT |
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Prompts: drop hand-offs, plan skills, question change |
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Quick hits: Just Eat's AI menu photos and more |
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Gartner: a fifth of the time AI frees up goes into more innovative work.
The short version: Gartner published new HR research on 26 October at its HR Symposium in Orlando. Boards expect AI to bring productivity and cost savings. Gartner's figures say almost no organisation gets there through productivity alone, and only about a fifth of the time AI frees up goes into more innovative work.
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21%
of time freed up by AI went into more innovative work, in a Gartner survey of 1,865 employees (Q2 2026)
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97%
of organisations can't reach the cost savings they want through productivity alone
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Where the value from AI is getting stuck
Gartner figures released 26 Oct 2026. Each bar has its own base.
| Organisations that can't reach their cost-savings goals through productivity alone |
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Companies planning to spend more on AI next year
Gartner analyst figure |
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Leaders with no alignment on where AI creates value
Survey of 297 CHROs, July 2026 |
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Companies already over budget on AI
Gartner analyst figure |
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Time freed up by AI that went into more innovative work
Survey of 1,865 employees, Q2 2026 |
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Source: Gartner press release, 26 Oct 2026.
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The details:
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77% of board members expect AI to deliver productivity and cost savings. |
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38% of companies are over budget on AI and 85% plan to spend more next year, according to Gartner analyst CV Viverito. |
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A July 2026 Gartner survey of 297 CHROs found that 78% of leaders have no alignment on where AI creates value. |
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Gartner says people doing well with AI combine three skill sets: knowing when to trust or challenge AI and owning the result, working well with other people, and creativity and adaptability. |
Why it matters: Boards are counting on gains from AI, and Gartner's figures show most of the time it frees up is not reaching higher-value work. You can't change that without knowing where your own team's hours go now. Ask your team where the time AI saved them last month actually went, then choose the valuable work it should go to next.
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Barclays plans to cut about 5,000 jobs, most of them in support functions.
The short version: Barclays announced on 22 October, with its third-quarter results, that it plans to cut about 5,000 jobs, around 5% of its workforce. Most of the cuts fall in support functions. Chief executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan said AI is 'the icing on the cake – it's not the cake', and that banks need to build the infrastructure required to benefit from it.
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5,000
jobs being cut in 2026, about 5% of Barclays' workforce
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60%
of the cuts expected in support functions, including developers
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Barclays' planned job cuts in 2026
Roles, as set out by finance director Anna Cross on 22 October
| Still to go before the end of the year |
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Source: IBTimes UK, 24 Oct 2026. Support functions share: CNBC, 22 Oct 2026.
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The details:
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Third-quarter pre-tax profit rose 12% to £2.3bn. |
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Barclays expects more than £1.1bn of gross efficiency savings in 2027. |
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In Barclays UK, better customer-facing technology cut call-centre volumes by 10% over the past year. Changes to branch staffing cut employees per branch by around 10%. |
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The bank's earnings presentation names 'organisational simplification and technology change efficiency driven by AI'. |
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Barclays did not say how many affected staff might be offered other roles. |
Why it matters: At Barclays, AI is one part of a wider efficiency drive, and the jobs going are mostly in support functions. If your organisation is running an efficiency programme, ask which of your team's processes are being redesigned and on what timeline. Then ask HR what retraining and redeployment will be offered.
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Find out where your team's saved hours went.
The short version: Ask your team three quick questions. AI then sorts their answers into where the saved time went: more of the same, new work, checking AI, or admin.
| Paste into ChatGPT, Copilot or Claude. Fill in the brackets. |
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I lead [number] people in [function]. I asked each of them three questions anonymously: which tasks AI now makes faster, roughly how many hours a week that saves, and what they did with the time.
Their answers, with names removed: [paste answers].
Sort the saved time into four groups: more of the same work, new or higher-value work, checking or fixing AI output, and admin or meetings. Give rough hours for each group, using only their numbers.
Point out answers that are too vague to count instead of guessing.
Then suggest two changes that would move more hours into new or higher-value work, and three questions to discuss at our next team meeting. |
How to use it: Put the three questions in a quick Teams or Slack poll. Paste the answers in and you'll see where the time went in five minutes.
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Role plugins in Copilot Cowork, and decks in ChatGPT.
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#1
🧩 Role plugins in Copilot Cowork
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Copilot Cowork is Microsoft's tool for handing longer tasks to Copilot in Microsoft 365 (separate from Anthropic's Claude Cowork). On 21 October Microsoft added ready-made plugins for Sales, Service, Education and Legal roles. The Service plugin can put a case queue in order by deadline and customer impact, brief you on one case before your next customer contact, and draft a reply from verified case facts for you to review. The Sales plugin drafts follow-ups after customer meetings and ranks open deals. They sit in the new Roles & Industry section of the plugin library.
| Try it If you lead a service team, run the Service plugin's case triage on this week's open escalations and note any case it ranks lower than your team would. |
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OpenAI launched ChatGPT Slides on 16 October. Start from a chat, your files or an outline, or share an example deck for it to follow. Edit text, charts and images yourself or ask ChatGPT, and invite colleagues to edit the same deck and comment. On the web it exports to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides. It is rolling out to eligible Pro, Business and Enterprise users on the web and the desktop app.
| Try it Give it the outline of your next team update and an old deck as the style guide, then export to PowerPoint. |
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Useful when your organisation starts an efficiency drive.
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Find the hand-offs and approvals you can drop |
| Paste in, fill in the brackets, run it on one process. |
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Process: [name, e.g. setting up a new supplier]. It runs [how often].
The steps in order, with the role that does each one (no names) and the rough time taken: [list].
List every hand-off and approval. For each, say whether it changes the outcome or only passes information along.
Mark any step that may be a legal, audit, safety or financial control. Do not suggest removing those. List them for the control owner to review.
For the rest, suggest what to remove, merge or standardise, what could go wrong, and who owns the decision.
Finish with the shorter process as a numbered list. Do not add any AI or software steps. |
Why it works: most delay sits in hand-offs and sign-offs. This shows you which to cut before you automate anything.
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A skills plan for one role, built on real mistakes |
| Paste in, fill in the brackets, pick one role. |
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My team works as [role] and uses [the AI tools you use] for [main tasks].
Two recent cases where the AI output was wrong or needed heavy editing: [describe, no customer or personal details].
Where the team is strong and where it struggles: [notes, no names].
This plan is for development, not for performance ratings.
Cover three areas:
1. AI judgement: when to trust the output, when to challenge it, and owning the result
2. Working with people: stakeholders, communication, teamwork
3. Adaptability: creativity and learning new ways of working
For each one: what good looks like in this role, an early sign someone needs support, and a 30-minute weekly practice activity built on the cases above.
Keep it short and practical. Do not recommend courses. |
Why it works: it's built on your team's real mistakes, so the practice fits the job.
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Questions to ask when a change programme is announced |
| Paste in the day the change is announced. |
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My organisation has announced a change programme. In my own words, with nothing confidential: [short summary].
My team's main work: [activities, no names].
Give me:
1. Eight questions for my manager or HR: which processes are in scope, the timeline, what happens to roles, retraining and redeployment, and how decisions get made
2. A draft note to my team, under 100 words, saying what I know, what I don't know yet, and when I expect to hear more. I will agree it with HR before sending
3. Topics I should not comment on until HR has confirmed them |
Why it works: your team will ask you first. This gets you the answers, and a note to send, the same day.
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News, Insights & Trends
Four more stories from the past week.
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Bad AI: Just Eat apologised for AI-generated menu photos that showed fried eggs and sausages floating in cola, and sushi rolls filled with cheese. It removed the images and paused the rollout (Restaurant Online, 21 Oct) |
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From 30 October, employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work. Employment lawyer Emily Metcalfe of Square One Law says employers should assess the risks from AI tools as part of that (Personnel Today, 26 Oct) |
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The Chancellor plans £10m a year for work on how AI will reshape jobs, plus £30m for local AI partnerships with mayoral authorities, including AI skills for workers (GOV.UK, 24 Oct) |
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58% of employees would turn down a job offer if a company's values on AI didn't match their own, in a survey of 7,100 people in six countries including the UK by employment services firm G-P (21 Oct) |
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G3NR8 is an impact consultancy for the exponential age. We help organisations implement AI for maximum returns on investment.
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Train your teams: we've trained 150+ large organisations to use AI on their real work, from hands-on workshops to full AI activation programmes. |
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Get your leadership team aligned, with a shared plan for AI and clear decisions on what happens next. |
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Improve operational efficiency with OEX, our Operational Excellence platform. |
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