"AI doesn't reduce work -- it intensifies it."
"In an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a US-based technology company with about 200 employees, we found that employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so."
"Once the excitement of experimenting fades, workers can find that their workload has quietly grown and feel stretched from juggling everything that's suddenly on their plate. That workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making."
"We identified three main forms of intensification."
"Task expansion: Because AI can fill in gaps in knowledge, workers increasingly stepped into responsibilities that previously belonged to others."
"Blurred boundaries between work and non-work: Because AI made beginning a task so easy -- it reduced the friction of facing a blank page or unknown starting point -- workers slipped small amounts of work into moments that had previously been breaks."
"More multitasking: AI introduced a new rhythm in which workers managed several active threads at once: manually writing code while AI generated an alternative version, running multiple agents in parallel, or reviving long-deferred tasks because AI could 'handle them' in the background."
"You had thought that maybe, oh, because you could be more productive with AI, then you save some time, you can work less. But then really, you don't work less. You just work the same amount or even more."
This is my experience. AI raises expectations and intensifies work.
AI doesn't reduce work -- it intensifies it#
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