The promise of artificial intelligence is simple. In other words, we let machines do the work. In fact, mechanical babysitting may be creating new headaches. A new study published in the Harvard Business Review suggests that far from making work easier, AI may be creating what researchers call “brain fatigue” in some workers.
Researchers surveyed nearly 1,500 employees and found that those who constantly bounced between multiple AI tools reported increased decision fatigue and errors. Approximately one in seven workers said they have experienced mental exhaustion from juggling AI tools at work.
“AI may be used up long before we are, but we’re still here with the same brains we had yesterday,” said Julie Bedard, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group and author of the study. He told CBS News that the findings are an “early warning sign” that expectations about AI productivity may need to be recalibrated.
“In some ways, AI is very useful for work, and in other ways, it gives us pause in the way we work,” Bedard says. “Specifically, intense monitoring of AI can lead to a kind of cognitive, just fatigue.”
productivity paradox
The study found a striking contradiction: AI can both reduce burnout and cause it.
When employees have to constantly monitor multiple AI systems or work with multiple tools simultaneously, the mental strain increases exponentially. In contrast, when employees used AI to actually reduce the burden of repetitive tasks, their stress levels decreased.
Bedard explained that AI “allows us to really expand our capabilities and basically expand our workload and scope of responsibilities in the workplace,” and that expanded capabilities can quickly become overwhelming.
“AI Brainfly causes so much mental fatigue that we feel it is beyond our brain’s capacity to handle those tasks,” she said.
what does it feel like
For those who work deeply with AI tools, the concept of a “brain fly” resonates.
Jack Downey, head of strategy, operations and products at Webster Pass Consulting, says, “Until AI, people often feel tired after a full day in a way they never felt during a normal workday.” He uses AI to build automation systems every day, but he finds that AI workflows create additional mental strain.
“You’re always waiting…and changing gears,” he said. “It works very fast, but it’s not so fast that it’s instantaneous. So it might take 5 seconds to do one task, 50 seconds to do another task, and 5 minutes to do another task.” Downey said he typically has several different windows open to work on multiple parts of a project at the same time.
While this technology expands what employees can do, it also expands what is expected of them, even if those expectations are internally driven.
“AI’s capabilities are limitless, so it can be very difficult to just say no and stop what you want the next improvement to be,” Downey said. “Perfectionists often don’t know when to stop. Because the next best thing is possible, they often end up spending more time creating the perfect workflow and telling the AI what to do.”
Downey said he has found that setting deadlines for himself and the AI helps limit problems and produce a better product.
Why companies should pay attention
For years, many predictions about artificial intelligence suggested that the technology would allow fewer workers to do more work, faster. But if AI is already pushing employees into cognitive overload, Bedard said organizations may need to rethink those assumptions.
“We need to redesign the way we work, not just keep doing what we did yesterday and put AI on top of it,” she said.
The study found that leadership and training can play an important role. We found less confusion among employees whose managers intentionally used AI.
If companies don’t understand that, their bottom line can suffer. Employees experiencing AI brainflies reported making more mistakes, slower decision-making, and increased fatigue. Bedard makes clear that the solution is not to abandon AI, but to rethink how human workers can best interact with these tools as the AI revolution accelerates.
The possibilities for AI may be limitless. The question is how far the human brain can go.
