AI at work: Will it contribute to employee burnout?

The stress Mr Garg and his team experienced using AI tools at work is reflected in recent research.

In freelancer platform Upwork’s survey of 2,500 knowledge workers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, 96% of top executives say they expect the use of AI tools to increase their company’s overall productivity levels – with 81% acknowledging they’ve increased demands on workers over the past year.

Yet 77% of employees in the survey say AI tools have actually decreased their productivity and added to their workload. And 47% of employees using AI in the survey say they have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect.

As a result, 61% of people believe that using AI at work will increase their chances of experiencing burnout – rising to 87% of people under 25, as revealed in a separate survey of 1,150 Americans, by CV writing company Resume Now.

Resume Now’s survey also highlights how 43% of people feel AI will negatively impact work-life balance.

Whether the tech is based on AI or not, surveys suggest many workers are already feeling overwhelmed.

A further study by work management platform Asana highlights the effect of introducing more work-based apps.

In its survey of 9,615 knowledge workers across Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, it found that, of those that use six to 15 different apps in the workplace, 15% say they miss messages and notifications because of the number of tools.

For those that use 16 or more, 23% say they are less efficient, and their attention span is reduced because of constantly having to switch apps.

As Cassie Holmes, management professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, commented in the study: “Using multiple apps requires additional time to learn them and switch between them, and this lost time is painful because we are so sensitive to wasted time.”