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The Double-Edged Sword of AI in the Workplace
Artificial intelligence has moved beyond being a futuristic concept and is now a reality that impacts how we work. While it promises to make tasks more efficient, the real question is whether these time savings will translate into actual benefits for workers or if they will simply lead to more work.
The initial appeal of AI lies in its ability to handle mundane, repetitive tasks, freeing up time for more meaningful work. However, many employees are beginning to see that the time saved isn’t always rewarded with extra downtime. Instead, businesses often use AI to push teams to produce more, creating an environment where efficiency is expected but not necessarily compensated.
For example, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, has encouraged employees to “invent for our customers more quickly and expansively” using AI. This suggests that the expectation is not to work less but to do more with fewer resources. If employees fail to meet these expectations, they risk being replaced by those who can leverage AI to increase output.
This dynamic has led to growing concerns among workers about the fairness of AI implementation. A recent survey found that nearly half of workers believe the time saved through AI should belong to them, not their employers. According to the survey, conducted by SAP, workers using AI save almost an hour a day on average. More than one-fifth of respondents said they would rather hide this time than give managers a reason to expect more from them. This has led to behaviors like browsing Zillow while pretending to work, known as “productivity theater.”
To prevent this from turning into a workplace battleground, companies need to be transparent and address employee concerns. Autumn Krauss, chief scientist at SAP, emphasizes the importance of making employees feel that they are receiving something valuable in return for their increased productivity. She mentions that some companies in legal and professional services have taken a progressive approach, allowing employees to use the time saved through AI for professional development instead of just increasing billable hours.
Taking Control of Time
Not all companies or employees will follow this approach. Some individuals are taking matters into their own hands. Jeff Mette, a managing director at a software consulting firm in Atlanta, is an example of someone who uses AI to save significant amounts of time. He employs multiple tools, each for a specific purpose, to streamline his workflow. By using Gemini for research, Perplexity to summarize news, and training Claude to mimic his writing style, he estimates that what used to take 60 hours of work can now be completed in 30.
Mette uses this extra time to pursue a side hustle, advising small businesses on go-to-market strategies. He feels that he owes his primary employer 40 hours per week, but he also believes it’s reasonable to reclaim additional time for personal projects.
At his primary job, he now budgets an hour for coffee meetings that he once crammed into 30 minutes. This slower pace allows for more creative thinking, according to Mette.
The Risk of Overwork
While transferring time saved to a second job or professional development may seem beneficial, the idea of actually working less remains challenging. History shows that new technologies often lead to faster-paced work rather than reduced hours. Cal Newport, author of “Slow Productivity,” argues that the introduction of PCs and email led to an explosion in the average employee’s workload. This is partly because measuring output is difficult in many jobs, so companies often use time as a proxy for productivity.
Economist and sociologist Juliet Schor warns that U.S. workers’ already high rates of stress and burnout could worsen if they are expected to work long hours at AI-aided levels of efficiency. In her book, “Four Days a Week,” she explores companies’ experiments with reduced schedules. Most of the businesses she studied found that employees could accomplish as much as they used to, or even more, if given an extra day to recharge.
However, pared-down schedules remain far from mainstream. For this to change, workers may need to reach their breaking points before companies reconsider their approaches. Companies will respond if—perhaps only if—their AI productivity leads to negative consequences.
