If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals

Mia Magdalena Bangerl; Leonie Disch; Emilia Isailovic; Viktoria Pammer-Schindler

doi:10.1145/3805029.3818284

If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals

Mia Magdalena Bangerl^*
, Leonie Disch^*
, Emilia Isailovic
, Viktoria Pammer-Schindler

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper › peer-review

Abstract

With AI becoming increasingly ingrained in both everyday and professional life, we aim to investigate which tasks people want to (not) delegate to AI and for what reasons. We report findings from a survey-based study with 17 STEM university students examining their delegation preferences across 28 diverse tasks. Extending prior work on AI task delegability, we combine quantitative delegation choices with qualitative explanations of participants’ reasoning. Our results show strong acceptance of AI delegation for repetitive, data-driven, and efficiency-oriented tasks alongside resistance toward AI delegation in (inter-)personal and socially meaningful tasks. Compared to prior work, our findings suggest greater openness to full AI automation among future professionals with high exposure to AI, while reaffirming the importance of human agency. High-stakes domains such as health and civic decision-making revealed ambivalent preferences: participants recognized AI’s analytical benefits but strongly emphasized the need for human judgment, accountability, and oversight.

Translated title of the contribution	Wenn KI es machen kann, dann sollte sie? Präferenzen in der Aufgabendelegierung bei den Arbeitenden der Zukunft
Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work
Editors	Philipp Wintersberger, Martina Mara, Helena Ana Frijns, Advait Sarkar, Sowmya Somanath
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	9798400725982
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3805029.3818284
Publication status	Published - 10 Jul 2026

Publication series

Name	CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work

Keywords

AI
Automation
Human Oversight
Human-AI Collaboration
Survey Study
Task Delegation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Artificial Intelligence
Hardware and Architecture
Information Systems
Sociology and Political Science

Fields of Expertise

Information, Communication & Computing

Access to Document

10.1145/3805029.3818284Licence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

Bangerl, M. M., Disch, L., Isailovic, E., & Pammer-Schindler, V. (2026). If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals. In P. Wintersberger, M. Mara, H. A. Frijns, A. Sarkar, & S. Somanath (Eds.), CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work Article 5 (CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3805029.3818284

If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals. / Bangerl, Mia Magdalena; Disch, Leonie; Isailovic, Emilia et al.
CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work. ed. / Philipp Wintersberger; Martina Mara; Helena Ana Frijns; Advait Sarkar; Sowmya Somanath. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2026. 5 (CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper › peer-review

Bangerl, MM, Disch, L, Isailovic, E & Pammer-Schindler, V 2026, If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals. in P Wintersberger, M Mara, HA Frijns, A Sarkar & S Somanath (eds), CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work., 5, CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3805029.3818284

Bangerl MM, Disch L, Isailovic E, Pammer-Schindler V. If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals. In Wintersberger P, Mara M, Frijns HA, Sarkar A, Somanath S, editors, CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2026. 5. (CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work). doi: 10.1145/3805029.3818284

Bangerl, Mia Magdalena ; Disch, Leonie ; Isailovic, Emilia et al. / If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals. CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work. editor / Philipp Wintersberger ; Martina Mara ; Helena Ana Frijns ; Advait Sarkar ; Sowmya Somanath. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2026. (CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work).

@inproceedings{92fe75b9c0854c2d8fed88fd3d6b70b3,

title = "If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals",

abstract = "With AI becoming increasingly ingrained in both everyday and professional life, we aim to investigate which tasks people want to (not) delegate to AI and for what reasons. We report findings from a survey-based study with 17 STEM university students examining their delegation preferences across 28 diverse tasks. Extending prior work on AI task delegability, we combine quantitative delegation choices with qualitative explanations of participants{\textquoteright} reasoning. Our results show strong acceptance of AI delegation for repetitive, data-driven, and efficiency-oriented tasks alongside resistance toward AI delegation in (inter-)personal and socially meaningful tasks. Compared to prior work, our findings suggest greater openness to full AI automation among future professionals with high exposure to AI, while reaffirming the importance of human agency. High-stakes domains such as health and civic decision-making revealed ambivalent preferences: participants recognized AI{\textquoteright}s analytical benefits but strongly emphasized the need for human judgment, accountability, and oversight.",

keywords = "AI, Task Delegation, Survey Study, Automation, Human Oversight, Human-AI Collaboration, AI, Automation, Human Oversight, Human-AI Collaboration, Survey Study, Task Delegation",

author = "Bangerl, \{Mia Magdalena\} and Leonie Disch and Emilia Isailovic and Viktoria Pammer-Schindler",

year = "2026",

month = jul,

day = "10",

doi = "10.1145/3805029.3818284",

language = "English",

series = "CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

editor = "Philipp Wintersberger and Martina Mara and Frijns, \{Helena Ana\} and Advait Sarkar and Sowmya Somanath",

booktitle = "CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work",

address = "United States",

}

TY - GEN

T1 - If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals

AU - Bangerl, Mia Magdalena

AU - Disch, Leonie

AU - Isailovic, Emilia

AU - Pammer-Schindler, Viktoria

PY - 2026/7/10

Y1 - 2026/7/10

N2 - With AI becoming increasingly ingrained in both everyday and professional life, we aim to investigate which tasks people want to (not) delegate to AI and for what reasons. We report findings from a survey-based study with 17 STEM university students examining their delegation preferences across 28 diverse tasks. Extending prior work on AI task delegability, we combine quantitative delegation choices with qualitative explanations of participants’ reasoning. Our results show strong acceptance of AI delegation for repetitive, data-driven, and efficiency-oriented tasks alongside resistance toward AI delegation in (inter-)personal and socially meaningful tasks. Compared to prior work, our findings suggest greater openness to full AI automation among future professionals with high exposure to AI, while reaffirming the importance of human agency. High-stakes domains such as health and civic decision-making revealed ambivalent preferences: participants recognized AI’s analytical benefits but strongly emphasized the need for human judgment, accountability, and oversight.

AB - With AI becoming increasingly ingrained in both everyday and professional life, we aim to investigate which tasks people want to (not) delegate to AI and for what reasons. We report findings from a survey-based study with 17 STEM university students examining their delegation preferences across 28 diverse tasks. Extending prior work on AI task delegability, we combine quantitative delegation choices with qualitative explanations of participants’ reasoning. Our results show strong acceptance of AI delegation for repetitive, data-driven, and efficiency-oriented tasks alongside resistance toward AI delegation in (inter-)personal and socially meaningful tasks. Compared to prior work, our findings suggest greater openness to full AI automation among future professionals with high exposure to AI, while reaffirming the importance of human agency. High-stakes domains such as health and civic decision-making revealed ambivalent preferences: participants recognized AI’s analytical benefits but strongly emphasized the need for human judgment, accountability, and oversight.

KW - AI

KW - Task Delegation

KW - Survey Study

KW - Automation

KW - Human Oversight

KW - Human-AI Collaboration

KW - AI

KW - Automation

KW - Human Oversight

KW - Human-AI Collaboration

KW - Survey Study

KW - Task Delegation

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105045441516

U2 - 10.1145/3805029.3818284

DO - 10.1145/3805029.3818284

M3 - Conference paper

T3 - CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work

BT - CHIWORK 2026 - Adjunct Proceedings of the 5th Annual Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work

A2 - Wintersberger, Philipp

A2 - Mara, Martina

A2 - Frijns, Helena Ana

A2 - Sarkar, Advait

A2 - Somanath, Sowmya

PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

ER -

If AI Can Do It, It Should? Task Delegation Preferences of Future Professionals

Abstract

Publication series

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Fields of Expertise

Access to Document

Other files and links

Cite this