The most pessimistic vision of the future of AI predicted that the automation of processes would mean the elimination of many jobs. The most optimistic assure that AI will not replace employees, but rather will enhance your skills making them more productive, which will translate into shorter days.
A analysis of Harvard Business Reviewbased on eight months of observation at a US technology company with about 200 employees, reveals something very different: AI is making employees take on more tasks, but also make them work longer days.
Do more with AI. The study observed that the use of AI in the company It did not simplify the work, but rather expanded it. The researchers observed that employees, product managers, and designers began using AI on their own initiative, even though the company did not force them to do so. What it did do was provide business subscriptions to those who decided to use it in their work.
This use made employees begin to tackle more and more tasks, not only within the scope of their position, but, for example, employees from the sales department asked AI for help. to program a tool to help them in their task. Employees argued that, with the help of AI, they had immediate response to their ideas and projects, which allowed them to accomplish more tasks.
The end of breaks. The help of AI and the elimination of friction in starting new tasks motivated employees to take on more and more tasks, increasing their daily workload. The most curious thing is that the researchers discovered that this additional motivation also implied that employees gave up their natural rest times.
The increase in workload, even voluntarily, increased their levels of cognitive fatigue and exhaustion, influencing their decision-making capacity. By not having to stop and reflect in front of a blank page of a report or simply go to a colleague’s desk for help with a question, employees endured greater mental strain. This progressive exhaustion had an impact on worsening of work quality and in personnel turnover due to burnout.
Fast pace and multitasking. He productivity increase The initial advantage that AI provided made it possible for employees to have several open fronts. The researchers detected that employees assigned a task to the AI (or even several tasks in parallel processes) and, while obtaining a result, started a new task.
This practice caused a state of perpetual multitasking, with frequent interruptions and “juggling” between different ideas and open projects, which contributed to exhausting employees’ cognitive capacity a little more.
More work for you, more work for others. Daring to take on tasks that did not correspond to them, in turn caused a supervision overload for the departments to which it did correspond.
For example, if someone in the sales department created code to streamline the analysis of their sales data, that would require the engineering department to review that code to make sure it was correct. that is correct and safeincreasing your workload with unplanned projects.
Blurred boundaries between work and life. One of the most notable consequences is how AI acts as an always-available “co-pilot,” removing barriers between work and personal hours. The employees who participated in the analysis ended up extending their work hours on their own initiative, reviewing ideas or polishing the work they had started with AI at home.
As its authors point out, “organizations could see this voluntary expansion of work as a clear victory. After all, if workers do it on their own initiative, why would that be a bad thing?” However, this apparent initial advantage for companies can mask a long-term problem “Overwork can impair judgment, increase the likelihood of errors, and make it difficult for organizations to distinguish between true productivity gains and unsustainable intensity,” the researchers note.
The report ‘Barometer of AI in the world of work’ prepared by PwC, corroborates that in companies with a high implementation of AI, productivity increases between 20 and 30% on average, but it is only maintained at these levels if it is accompanied by ethical governance and redistribution of efforts. Without these adjustments, the promise of efficiency becomes a trap of greater individual effort that ends up burning out employees with heavier workloads and longer hours.
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