AI Boosts Productivity, But May Lead to Burnout

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments. 

By helping us be more productive, AI is going to give us more downtime, which we can use to unplug and recharge or for tasks requiring more creativity and deep focus. At least that was the promise. But now the LLM rubber is hitting the organizational road, and a fascinating new study published in “Harvard Business Review” shows that the reality is…complex.    Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley spent eight months studying the work habits of 200 tech company employees. What they found was that AI allowed the employees to do more work — and that’s exactly what they did. The problem was the work both accelerated in pace and expanded in time, bleeding into lunch and evenings and blurring “boundaries between work and non-work.” Also remarkable: the employees did this without being asked to. Because AI made work more doable, the employees did more. In other words, “AI makes it easier to do more — but harder to stop,” the authors write. “What looks like higher productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep,” which in turn can lead to “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”   What it shows is that AI adoption isn’t enough, nor is asking employees to self-regulate. Instead, the authors call for leaders to institute an “AI practice,” a set of norms and standards for how to use AI.    The rise of AI is coming at a time in which brain health is moving to the center of our conversation about health. The study is a lesson that as we outsource more and more cognitive tasks to AI, we need to take intentional steps to protect our brain health. I'd love to know: How has AI impacted your workload? Let me know in the comments.