A new TechCrunch report highlights surprising early signs of workplace burnout among employees who enthusiastically adopt AI tools — not because they’re forced to, but precisely because the tools make more work feel possible. Researchers from UC Berkeley spent about eight months embedded in a 200-person tech company that freely embraced AI, interviewing over 40 employees to understand how productivity tools change work habits.
What they found is a classic case of “workload creep.” Since nobody was pressured by management to hit new targets, AI adoption wasn’t mandated — yet employees voluntarily took on more tasks as tools made complex work easier to attempt. Tasks that once seemed overwhelming suddenly became achievable, but AI didn’t reduce overall workload; instead, it expanded employees’ to-do lists and bled work into personal time, such as lunch breaks and evenings. As one engineer put it: even though AI made tasks faster, “you just work the same amount or even more.”
This effect isn’t unique to one company: follow-up discussion and early research (e.g., from the Harvard Business Review and UC Berkeley embedded study) show a pattern where productivity gains can paradoxically fuel longer work hours and blurred boundaries between work and personal life. Researchers note that when AI lowers the effort barrier to begin new tasks, workers end up doing more work — not less — which can over time lead to cognitive fatigue, decreased decision quality, and eventual burnout without intentional breaks or structural norms around AI use.
The emerging insight is that AI alone doesn’t solve workload problems; human systems and policies do. Organizations that incorporate AI need to pair tools with AI practices — clear expectations about task scope, boundaries around work hours, and cultural norms that recognize when “productivity” is causing harm. Without these intentional safeguards, the very technology meant to save time can unintentionally increase stress and workload for those who embrace it most enthusiastically.
