A growing wave of research is challenging one of the most persistent assumptions about AI in the workplace: that automation naturally reduces workload. A recent study published by Harvard Business Review offers a different picture. As the authors note, “AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it.”
The findings are clear. When employees adopt generative AI enthusiastically and without guardrails, three patterns emerge:
• They expand the scope of their responsibilities
• They blur the boundaries between work and non‑work
• They juggle more parallel tasks than ever before
The result is a surge in productivity that feels empowering at first, but quietly increases cognitive load and accelerates the pace of work. What begins as experimentation becomes a new normal—one that is not always sustainable.
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