With AI — "First, people began taking on work that previously would have belonged to someone else or might not have been attempted at all."

"The scope of what counted as 'my job' widened. Second, because AI makes it easy to start and continue tasks, work seeped into moments that used to function as pauses. People would send prompts during lunch, before meetings, or in the evening when an idea came to mind. This dissolved some of the natural stopping points in the workday. Third, workers increasingly kept multiple threads alive at once. They would run AI processes in the background while reviewing code, drafting documents, or attending meetings. Some even ran multiple AI agents simultaneously. This created a rhythm where both the human and the machine were constantly in motion.... What surprised me most was the contrast between how people described their moment-to-moment engagement and how they described their overall experience. In micro moments of prompting, iterating, and experimenting, people talked about momentum and a sense of expanded capability. But when they stepped back and reflected on their broader work experience, a different tone sometimes emerged. They described feeling busier, more stretched, or less able to fully disconnect...."

From "AI promised to free up workers’ time. UC Berkeley Haas researchers found the opposite" (UC Berkeley Haas News).