Tool · Agerix engineering practice

Cost of misused AI calculator

Generative AI promises time saved. When it produces workslop — deliverables that look polished but are hollow — it costs time instead, and that time has a measurable price. Enter your own figures: the estimate recalculates live.

Your parameters

Total headcount100

Average gross annual salary€42,000

Employees affected / monthsource40%

Prevalence measured by the BetterUp Labs–Stanford study. Adjustable to your context.

Incidents / affected employee / monthassumption2

A frequency the study does not cover — set it from your own observation.

Advanced assumptions

Handling time / incidentsource1 h 51

Average established by the study (1 h 51, ~20 min more than doing the work yourself).

Employer cost coefficientassumption1.42

Gross salary × on-costs. Basis for the real hourly cost.

Working hours / yearassumption1,607

Statutory annual working time (France, 1,607 h). Adjust to your country.

Estimated cost of workslop

Per year

—

— / month

Hours lost / year

—

Full-time equivalent

— FTE

Cost of a single incident: — · employees affected: —

For reference, the study puts this cost at about $186/month per affected employee, or more than $9M/year for an organisation of 10,000 people. Your figures will differ depending on your salaries, rate and frequency.

How this calculation is built

An employee's real hourly cost is estimated from the gross salary and an on-costs coefficient, divided by annual working time: (salary × on-costs) ÷ working hours. The cost of an incident is that hourly cost multiplied by the handling time. The total aggregates the affected population and the frequency you indicate.

Two values come from the BetterUp Labs–Stanford study and are marked source: the share of affected employees (40%) and the time per incident (1 h 51). The others are assumptions you control — the tool invents no figure on your behalf.

For the phenomenon itself — its mechanics, the most exposed sectors and the governance levers — see the article Workslop: the hidden cost of AI in business.

Do your figures give you pause?

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