In the customer-support firm where an AI assistant raised productivity most for less-skilled agents, agents who had used it still outperformed their own pre-AI baseline during software outages when it gave no suggestions, more so after longer exposure and closer adherence to its suggestions.

SocioLens project,

Claim LD04-SL-C09 (v1.0)

Provenance and status

Claim type: Estimate
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: version
Verification state: Checked against the primary source; the source is a preprint. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: Retention over long periods without the tool; generalisation beyond a routine, scripted task
Limitations: Outages last minutes to hours and are not planned removals; one firm and one task; the published version is Quarterly Journal of Economics 140(2), 2025, and the outage analysis was read in the arXiv v2 version
Source (as cited): Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024
Source type: Preprint (recorded as “Preprint”)
Institutional position: Independent academic
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 14 October 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024 (Preprint)
Read the original

Version

This page shows version v1.0. Its record never changes, even when newer evidence arrives; the site may add a note to the page or withhold a figure not cleared for public use.

This pinned version is also the current version.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (VERSION) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH VERSION QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT)
Source type (coded): PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD04-SL-C09	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	In the customer-support firm where an AI assistant raised productivity most for less-skilled agents, agents who had used it still outperformed their own pre-AI baseline during software outages when it gave no suggestions, more so after longer exposure and closer adherence to its suggestions.	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	ESTIMATE	base_types: ESTIMATE
4	RESEARCH STRAND	B — Skill after the tool is removed	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024	source_ids: SRC-SL-BRYNJOLFSSON-LI-RAYMOND-ARXIV-2304-11771-V2
7	SOURCE TYPE	Preprint	classes: PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Independent academic	—
9	SCOPE	One firm’s customer-support agents	—
10	DESIGN	Chat-level comparison during unplanned software outages within a staggered rollout	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	5,172 agents	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	Generative-AI conversational assistant	—
13	COMPARATOR	The same agents before AI access	—
14	MAIN RESULT	During outages, treated agents beat their pre-AI baseline; the effect grows with exposure and with adherence to AI suggestions; the authors read this as evidence that exposure to AI leads to durable changes in worker skills	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	Whether gains from AI assistance persist when the tool is briefly unavailable	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	Retention over long periods without the tool; generalisation beyond a routine, scripted task	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Outages last minutes to hours and are not planned removals; one firm and one task; the published version is Quarterly Journal of Economics 140(2), 2025, and the outage analysis was read in the arXiv v2 version	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	Evidence against hollowing in a routine task; contrasts with losses among novices learning new material without guardrails	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	Not checked / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	Retained gains concentrated among agents who followed the AI most	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	LD-04, LD-02, D2	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	A planned removal of the tool, or a longer outage, that shows gains fading	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH VERSION QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: VERSION
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-10-14	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-04 (LIVING_DEBATE); LD-02 (LIVING_DEBATE); D2 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024” → Brynjolfsson et al. (2024), “Generative AI at Work” (SRC-SL-BRYNJOLFSSON-LI-RAYMOND-ARXIV-2304-11771-V2--v1.0) — Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, October 14). In the customer-support firm where an AI assistant raised productivity most for less-skilled agents, agents who had used it still outperformed their own pre-AI baseline during software outages when it gave no suggestions, more so after longer exposure and closer adherence to its suggestions [Claim LD04-SL-C09, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld04-sl-c09/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld04_sl_c09_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {In the customer-support firm where an AI assistant raised productivity most for less-skilled agents, agents who had used it still outperformed their own pre-AI baseline during software outages when it gave no suggestions, more so after longer exposure and closer adherence to its suggestions.},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-14},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld04-sl-c09/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD04-SL-C09, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 df5623ef1073df810adcfcf162323e4b6e20b9114c0d0de577c5bb4f885fa63a.

Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)

SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C09 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-14; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 14 October 2026 to build the LD-04 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-04 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 09 — LD04-SL-C09” SHA-256 1c962e4817a6cb85fbb7fe5c5444446be46cd126b0212f735d95a7ef9a7c1409; fixture fixtures/authored/claims/LD04-SL-C09--v1.0.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C09 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-04 debate
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD04-SL-C09 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-14); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 14 October 2026 to build the LD-04 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-04 source notes, checked against full texts or official abstracts
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-BRYNJOLFSSON-LI-RAYMOND-ARXIV-2304-11771-V2--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 09 — LD04-SL-C09 cites "Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-BRYNJOLFSSON-LI-RAYMOND-ARXIV-2304-11771-V2--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work,” arXiv:2304.11771 v2, November 2024".