New Research Confirms AI Is Making You Work More, Not Less

One of the most common promises of AI in the workplace is that it will reduce your workload. More productivity, less grind, right?

A new study says the opposite is happening.

Researchers at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business conducted an eight-month study at a U.S. technology company with roughly 200 employees. They found AI tools "consistently intensified work rather than lightened it."

I explored this with SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 197 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.

Three Ways Work Increased

The Berkeley researchers identified three distinct patterns driving this:.

Task expansion. Employees started taking on work they previously outsourced. Product managers began writing code themselves because AI made it possible. Designers started doing data analysis. The boundaries of what "your job" means started expanding..

Blurred boundaries. The conversational feel of prompting made it easy to fire up work at random times. Evenings, weekends, waiting rooms. If you can just ask a question and get an answer, why not do it right now?

Increased multitasking. Managing parallel threads across AI windows, chatbots, and agents created hidden cognitive overload. You feel productive but your brain is fragmenting.

Together, these patterns create what the researchers call a self-reinforcing cycle: faster output raises speed expectations, which drives greater AI reliance, which broadens task scope further. As one participant in the study put it: "You had thought that maybe...you can work less. But then really, you don't work less. You just work the same amount or even more."

A Desire to Keep Growing

"I don't know what their hypothesis was going into this research, but I can't imagine any of this was news to anybody," Roetzer says.

"I've never met a professional or leader who's really good at their job who doesn't have a sandbox of stuff that isn't getting done every day."

Unless a company decides to give time back, he says, productivity gains just get turned into higher expectations. Growth is a key driver.

Increased Expectations 

Roetzer pointed to concrete shifts already happening in the market.

"Expectations of growth and operating margin are increasing," he says. "In 2026, take software companies. There is a significant increase in expectations on the growth plus the operating margin. What used to be called the rule of 40, now it's rule of 60, rule of 70. So you're expected to grow at different rates."

In other words, the efficiency gains from AI aren't flowing back to employees as free time. They're flowing to shareholders as higher performance benchmarks.

Even the Most Self-Aware Leaders Struggle

Roetzer was candid about his own experience navigating doing more vs. doing less. He described a recent trip where he gave a major talk, finished, and had time to relax, swim, and enjoy the evening.

"I actually did take an hour off. I went to the gym, I went to the pool," he says.

But then he had enough down time and wanted to get more work done.

“So I just built a success score for three hours," he says, referring to a measurement tool for SmarterX’s online learning platform.

He described waking up early the next morning and continuing to work, doing the equivalent of a month of work that might be worth millions of dollars to the company. Then getting on the plane and instead of resting, putting on an AI podcast to keep learning.

"I am still, I would say, myself learning to live within this world where you can create a disproportionate amount of value quickly," Roetzer says.

This is the paradox at the center of the research. The people most capable of using AI well are the ones most susceptible to its pull. The tool is always available. The next idea is always one prompt away.

The Line Between Work and Play Disappears

The Berkeley researchers flagged context switching and blurred work-life boundaries among the most damaging effects of AI tool adoption. The always-on nature of conversational AI means work seeps into moments that used to be protected: commutes, evenings, the minutes before sleep.

"I did that last night right before I went to bed," Roetzer says. "I went into ChatGPT and I was like, ‘Hey, can you do this analysis for me?’"

The ease of starting work anywhere, anytime makes it difficult to unplug from it.

The Fix Isn't Individual Willpower — It's Setting Boundaries

The Berkeley researchers recommended intentional pauses, sequencing and batching tasks, and building dedicated time for human grounding and dialogue. Roetzer argues the real solution has to come from leadership.

"I think organizations need to allow employees to have some time back," he says. "Give them the time back and make them take that time back, and not just keep loading it in."

He connected this directly to the broader challenge of AI transformation. "This goes back to change management and transformation," he says. "Just taking courses and getting tools isn't going to be enough. We are just going to keep increasing productivity and never get the benefits of AI."

The promise of AI was always that it would make work better, not just faster. But if organizations don't allow employees to take the time gained for themselves, they’ll just keep spinning.

"I think it just highlights the fact that we need to do more as business leaders to make sure we're capturing some of that time back for ourselves and for our people," Roetzer says.