Office workers use AI for a fee, some people spend heavily to avoid being screwed over by their bosses

(Dan Tri) - Paid AI is becoming a fixed expense for many office workers in exchange for speed, autonomy and a sense of security against performance pressure.

Expenses that never seem to exist

"I used to think the free version was enough. But after using the paid AI versions, it was almost impossible to go back to the way it was before."

That is shared by Truc Thanh (22 years old, Hanoi), a content marketing employee at a study abroad consulting company, when talking about the amount of money she spends each month on AI tools.

Like many others, Thanh initially only took advantage of the free versions of AI.

However, as the workload becomes larger and the requirement for processing speed continuously increases, limitations on access rights, information synthesis ability or response quality gradually become barriers.

With content production work, Thanh often has to synthesize information from many sources, including many documents in Korean related to universities, scholarship programs or admission information.

"If I use the free version, the results are often not as expected, so I still have to carefully read each article, translate it into Vietnamese and then select information. One such article takes about 20 to 30 minutes," she said.

But when switching to the paid AI version, Thanh thinks the whole process becomes smoother.

According to Thanh, paid models also help her create images with beautiful layouts, reduce spelling errors and accommodate many different styles.

More importantly, they allow for multiple trial versions to be created without quickly hitting the limit like free versions.

"Losing nearly 700,000 VND each month for ChatGPT and Gemini is quite a lot, especially for new employees. But if we cut this amount, I feel like my work performance will decrease a lot," Thanh confided.

Not only Thanh, Minh Chau (22 years old, Hanoi), an internal communications officer, said she even paid for AI right from her third year of university.

Initially, her need was simply to overcome the file upload limits of the free version.

The longer she uses it, the more Chau relies on the in-depth search features, multi-source research, and interpretation of complex issues.

"I use AI for studying, work, or even questions in daily life like love counseling. When I return to the regular version, I feel like there are too many things missing," Chau commented.

Meanwhile, Duc Anh (23 years old, Hanoi), a recruitment officer, is someone who spends little on work tools.

One day, he accidentally surfed social networks and found out about and had the opportunity to try the paid version of AI for 4 consecutive months through promotional programs.

When the experience period ended and he returned to the free version, the difference that Duc Anh felt made him confused.

"When using the paid version, the AI ​​remembers conversations well, but when using the regular version, the AI ​​quickly forgets after just a few commands, so I find my work progress decreases and sometimes gets frustrated," Duc Anh shared.

Finally, after nearly two weeks of hesitation, he still decided to spend his own money to upgrade to the desired version.

New pressures appear

If in the past, trainee employees often ran to their colleagues' or superiors' desks to ask for every detail, now AI has become their advisor without hesitation.

That is the biggest value that makes Truc Thanh accept to maintain the paid package even though the economy is still tight.

"In the work environment, everyone is busy. I'm also afraid to ask my boss or colleagues too much because I'm afraid of bothering or being judged," Thanh expressed the pressure.

Especially for those new to work, this also helps reduce psychological pressure.

“I'm very afraid of being asked questions like "why don't you know how to do it?" or “Are you having a problem?”. Having good AI support, I feel more confident when presenting my work results," Truc Thanh said.

Duc Anh also has a similar feeling when he sees AI as an "implicit standard" in the working environment.

"When my colleagues are all proficient in using AI, I also have pressure to keep up. If I work slower or don't use AI well, I'm afraid my work results will be difficult to compete with," shared a young person with 2 years of experience.

Even though he just started working so his income is not too high, it costs him an extra few hundred thousand dong each month, he still maintains his registration because he believes that if he cuts AI, the effectiveness of using AI may be inferior to others.

However, what makes him confused is that after spending money, he is not sure that he has exploited all that this tool can do.

As for Minh Chau, she said that shortening the time spent handling media tasks gives her more time to take on after-hours projects to increase her income.

Besides work, AI is also a tool to answer daily questions of female employees.

"The feeling of using a high-end AI version is like having a person always ready to answer every question with convincing, in-depth results," Chau commented.

However, that also made her wonder many times whether she was learning from AI or just relying on it.

The initial effect is what all three characters see. However, along with that comes new pressures.

Among them, many employees admit that they have to balance their spending more, because once they get used to the speed and quality of paid AI, going back to the free version is no longer easy.

In fact, the trend of investing in AI does not stop at the individual level.

Many large businesses proactively grant accounts to improve productivity and limit the risk of internal data being posted to AI platforms through personal accounts.

However, when AI is deployed on a large scale, cost problems quickly appear for businesses.

On the other hand, businesses that lack resources and cannot support AI for their employees face another challenge.

That means workers have to spend their own money on AI to do their jobs, but this also causes businesses headaches because of the problem of internal data control.