AI Tools Increase Workload, Berkeley Study Finds
A new study from UC Berkeley Haas found that AI tools intended to save time often increase the total workload for employees. Contrary to promises of efficiency, employees in organizations with AI adoption reported spending more time on coordination and exception handling. The study suggests that for AI to deliver productivity gains, it must own and execute workflows end-to-end, rather than simply acting as an assistant.
- The study, authored by UC Berkeley Haas Associate Professor Aruna Ranganathan and PhD student Xingqi Maggie Ye, was an eight-month ethnographic analysis at a tech company with approximately 200 employees. - Researchers observed that employees voluntarily used AI to work faster, expand their scope of tasks, and extend their workdays, a phenomenon they termed "workload creep." - This intensification of work led to employees taking on responsibilities outside their traditional roles; for example, product managers started writing code and researchers took on engineering tasks. - The study identified a blurring of boundaries between work and personal time, with employees using AI during breaks, lunch, and outside of normal work hours, which diminished the restorative effects of downtime. - A separate survey from the Upwork Research Institute and Workplace Intelligence supports these findings, reporting that 77% of employees felt AI tools had added to their workload. - In contrast to AI assistants that can increase coordination efforts, "agentic AI" is designed to manage and execute entire workflows autonomously, potentially reducing the need for human intervention and oversight. - Companies like ServiceNow are already implementing agentic AI to automate IT, HR, and operational processes, reporting reductions in manual workloads by up to 60%. - The researchers suggest that to counter the negative effects of work intensification, companies should establish clear guidelines and "intentional pauses" to ensure that the speed of AI-driven work doesn't crowd out reflection and strategic thinking.
