A new UC Berkeley/HBR study found that 77% of employees using AI said it increased their workload. AI isn't yet the productivity tool C-Suite leaders are expecting.

96% of C-suite leaders expected AI to boost productivity.

What’s happening?

It’s the ‘silent work creep’, and something that resonates with me.

1. Doing more → AI means you can do more. You’re more autonomous. PMs writing code. Marketers are doing design. You just absorb more work. You can do things that were previously not within your reach. For people who like shipping work, it means they steadily increase the amount they do.

2. Blurred boundaries → There’s no “blank page” problem because of AI, e.g., the hardest part of starting any task is beginning with nothing. It means every part of your downtime can be filled with ‘doing’ work. I struggle with this. I’ve found myself filling every part of my life with more work. I don’t think it’s a net good thing. I suspect it will also lead to quicker burnout, in particular because of the next point.

3. Multi-tasking → having an AI “partner” means you can run multiple workstreams simultaneously. Especially since you can now create autonomous agents. I’ve found the cognitive load to be so much greater. Context switching between an array of different tasks. I also suspect this has downsides, and the ability to do focused work is more important than ever.

AI doesn’t necessarily free you from work. How you structure the work around AI determines whether it frees you or buries you.

My spicy take is that, for many companies, AI will lead to less productivity vs. more because of this very point.

Integrating AI into how teams work, their workflows, and operating models is key. It’s why this is becoming the fastest-growing AI service in the tech industry.