The first signs of burnout are coming from people who embrace AI the most

The most seductive narrative in American work culture right now isn’t that AI will take your job. That AI will save you from it.

That’s the version the industry has spent the last three years selling to millions of nervous people eager to buy. Yes, some white-collar jobs will disappear. But in many other roles, the argument goes, AI has the potential to replicate. You become a skilled, important lawyer, consultant, writer, coder, financial analyst – and so on. The tools work for you, you work a little harder, everyone wins.

But a new study published in the Harvard Business Review follows that premise to its true conclusion, and what it finds is no productivity change. It finds that companies are at risk of becoming burnout machines.

As part of what they describe as “continuing research,” UC Berkeley researchers spent eight months inside a 200-person tech company observing what happens when employees truly embrace AI. What they found in more than 40 “in-depth” interviews was that no one was oppressed in this company. No one was told to hit new goals. People just started doing more because the tools made it sound possible. But because they were able to do these things, the work began to bleed into the afternoon and evening breaks. The labor list is expanded to fill every hour the AI ​​frees up, and so on.

As one engineer told them, “You thought maybe, oh, because you can be more productive with AI, then you save some time, you can work less. But actually, you don’t work less. You just work the same amount or even more.”

On this tech industry forum Hacker News, one commenter had a similar reaction, writing, “I feel this. Since my team has jumped into AI everything for work style, expectations have tripled, stress has tripled and actual productivity has only increased by maybe 10%. It feels like leadership is putting a lot of pressure on everyone to prove their investment in AI is worth it and we all feel the pressure to work long-term to try to do long-term.”

It’s fascinating and terrifying. The debate about AI and work has always hinged on the same question – are the benefits real? But very few have stopped to ask what is happening where they are.

The researchers’ new findings are not entirely novel. A separate experiment last summer found experienced developers using AI tools took 19% longer on tasks when they believed they were 20% faster. At the same time, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research that tracked the adoption of AI in thousands of workplaces found that productivity gains amounted to only 3% in time savings, without a significant impact on earnings or hours worked in any job. Both studies have been classified.

This may be difficult to dismiss because it does not contradict the premise that AI can augment what workers can do alone. It confirms, and shows where all that growth really leads, namely “tiredness, burnout, and a growing feeling that the work is difficult to move, especially as the organization’s expectations of speed and response are high,” according to the researchers.

The industry is betting that helping people do more could be the answer to everything, but it could be the start of an entirely different problem. The study is worth reading, here.