AI is making some workers faster and giving them less time away from work. An in-progress study by researchers at UC Berkeley followed a 200-person technology company for eight months and interviewed more than 40 employees. The company did not impose new targets. Employees expanded their own workloads because the tools made additional tasks seem possible. Lunch breaks and late evenings filled with work, while to-do lists grew to occupy the hours that automation appeared to save, TechCrunch reported on February 9th.

The promise of AI as a private efficiency bargain collapses when every saved minute becomes available capacity. The employee who finishes a task earlier receives another task before the benefit becomes rest. A Harvard Business Review account of the research describes fatigue, burnout, and a growing difficulty stepping away as expectations for speed and responsiveness rise. The office does not need a manager shouting from behind a desk. A system that makes more work feasible can produce the same pressure through the worker's own attempt to remain useful. The new productivity measure arrives at the end of the day, when the laptop is still open and the next request is already waiting.