AI makes it easier to do more—but harder to stop.

For workers, the cumulative effect is fatigue, burnout, and a growing sense that work is harder to step away from, especially as organizational expectations for speed and responsiveness rise.

Instead of responding passively to how AI tools reshape workplaces, both individuals and companies should adopt an “AI practice”: a set of intentional norms and routines that structure how AI is used, when it is appropriate to stop, and how work should and should not expand in response to newfound capability. Without such practices, the natural... See more

In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it. In an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a U.S.-based technology company with about 200 employees, we found that employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more... See more

All of this produced a self-reinforcing cycle. AI accelerated certain tasks, which raised expectations for speed; higher speed made workers more reliant on AI. Increased reliance widened the scope of what workers attempted, and a wider scope further expanded the quantity and density of work. Several participants noted that although they felt more... See more

There were knock-on effects of people expanding their remits. For instance, engineers, in turn, spent more time reviewing, correcting, and guiding AI-generated or AI-assisted work produced by colleagues. These demands extended beyond formal code review. Engineers increasingly found themselves coaching colleagues who were “vibe-coding” and finishing... See more

Task expansion.

Because AI can fill in gaps in knowledge, workers increasingly stepped into responsibilities that previously belonged to others. Product managers and designers began writing code; researchers took on engineering tasks; and individuals across the organization attempted work they would have outsourced, deferred, or avoided entirely in... See more

These actions rarely felt like doing more work, yet over time they produced a workday with fewer natural pauses and a more continuous involvement with work. The conversational style of prompting further softened the experience; typing a line to an AI system felt closer to chatting than to undertaking a formal task

As a result, work felt less bounded and more ambient—something that could always be advanced a little further.