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AI is supposed to make work faster and easier, but some experts say it's also causing unforeseen and sometimes overlooked challenges for employees. A survey found that 74% of the C-suite reported feeling excited about AI, while 68% of individual contributors reported feeling anxious or overwhelmed. Dennis Stoly, the head of applied psychology at the American Psychological Association, says there's a disconnect between the expected benefits of AI and employees' actual experiences. Experts say there are a few reasons why some employees are feeling overwhelmed by having to use AI in their workplaces.
First, some workers say they're losing time checking and fixing AI outputs. A majority of employees said that using AI at work has saved them between 1 and 7 hours each week, according to a survey from Workday. However, employees also reported that they lost 40% of those efficiency gains by having to correct, rewrite, edit, or fact-check AI-generated content. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, said the AI models are prone to errors and that people should use them alongside other tools. I spoke with Linda Lee, a technical recruiter, who says that AI saved time on certain tasks, but she estimates that she spent almost half the time she gained correcting and fact-checking the results. For instance, sometimes the AI
software rated a candidate's resume as a 95% match when it was closer to 30% and also frequently mislabeled strong candidates as a poor match for a job. Companies may think that AI is making work faster, but Lee says that any efficiency gains are only possible because there was a person making sure AI wasn't making mistakes and doing everything behind the scenes. Second, some workers say they've had to learn how to use AI on their own. While many companies are pushing employees to use AI, only 27% of individual contributors said they received company AI training and just 32% reported clear access to AI tools, according to a survey. Employers'
expectations around AI can create an unsustainable cycle for workers, according to Stoly. He says employees are as busy as they can possibly be during the workday and then they feel like they need to spend their evenings learning about AI so that they can keep up and make the next day even busier. Devin Boudreaux, a digital PR strategist based in Boise, Idaho, says that before he could train AI to assist him, he first had to teach himself how to work with the models. In Boudreaux's view, companies are urging employees to become AI proficient, he says, but they want you to do it on your own time. Third, using AI tools can cause mental fatigue.
A recent study from Boston Consulting Group found that workers who frequently use AI experience an increase in mental fatigue, a phenomenon they termed AI brain fry. Those workers are more likely to make mistakes, feel overwhelmed or mentally foggy, and struggle to make decisions. The study found that workers who use three or more AI agents in their workflow are more likely to suffer negative effects like mental fog than those who use one or two. And tasks that involve high-levels of oversight require 14% more mental effort and cause a 12% increase in mental fatigue. Another major contributor to brain fry is that AI often increases the depth and breadth of employees' workloads, according to
Julie Bedard, a managing director at BCG and a co-author of the study. Even some AI leaders say they're feeling the oversight-related strain. Ben Wigler, co-founder of Lovemind AI, told French news agency AFP that using AI causes a brand new kind of cognitive load stemming from the need to babysit models. Ultimately, Stoly, the head of applied psychology at the American Psychological Association, says the goal of implementing AI at a company should not be to just use more AI. He says the goal has to be creating higher quality work in a sustainable way so that when you're 5 years out, you still have a thriving organization filled with happy employees.
