Why AI is Increasing Workload Instead of Reducing It
Beyond the Hype: How generative AI is reshaping our work habits into a high-speed trap
The promises made by major AI companies sound like a much-needed relief for your stressful daily work routine. However, a recent study in the Harvard Business Review paints a very different picture. Over the course of eight months, researchers at a U.S. technology company investigated how generative AI changes work habits.
The result: Instead of gaining time for strategic tasks, the use of AI led to a measurable intensification of work. Employees worked at a higher pace, expanded their scopes of responsibility, and extended their working hours—often without any explicit instructions from management.
Why the sudden surge in work?
According to the study, employees tend to use AI support to "leapfrog" skill gaps and take on tasks that actually lie outside their professional profile. For example, product designers or researchers began to code because these tools make entering foreign fields extremely easy.
However, this increase in autonomy leads to a creeping rise in workload. Simultaneously, it burdens specialist departments; for instance, experienced developers had to invest significantly more time in reviewing and correcting the AI-assisted drafts of their non-expert colleagues.
The Consequences: Vanishing Boundaries
Another aspect of the study concerns the blurring of work-life boundaries. Because "prompting" has a very low barrier to entry, participants increasingly used former break times for brief work impulses.
- Whether during lunch or right before heading home, the AI was often fed "one last quick draft."
- Researchers warn that natural recovery phases throughout the day are disappearing.
- Because interacting with AI often feels like an informal chat, the additional strain is often only perceived as exhaustion after the fact.
Programmed Exhaustion
The study identifies a new work rhythm where users manage multiple processes in parallel. While the AI generates content in the background, employees are already pivoting to the next project. This state of permanent multitasking significantly increases cognitive load.
Although the feeling of productivity and momentum rises, the constant fragmentation of attention leads to higher stress levels. The time gained through automation is not "saved"—it is immediately consumed by the management of additional, parallel task streams.
The Speed Trap
Within the teams studied, a dynamic developed where increased speed became the new norm. When results are delivered faster via AI, expectations for response times across the entire team rise. This effect reinforces a dependency on the tools and leads into a cycle of ever-higher pacing and growing pressure for output.
Recommendations for a Sustainable AI Strategy
To counter this creeping overload, the study’s authors advocate for the introduction of established norms—a so-called "AI Practice." This includes:
- Conscious Breaks: Pausing the workflow to critically question the quality of results.
- Task Sequencing: Avoiding the fragmentation of attention by focusing on one stream at a time.
- Protecting Human Interaction: Counteracting the isolation of working solely with AI.
Only by actively shaping these framework conditions can we prevent technology from dominating work culture in an uncontrolled manner.
AIArtificial Intelligence