AI Was Supposed To Make Work Easier—So Why Are We More Burned Out?

A new study finds that overusing AI tools may be increasing mental fatigue, slowing decision-making, and intensifying workloads.

By Andrea Bossi
Essence
https://www.essence.com/

The latest research looking at the effects of AI on our brain yielded a red flag warning.

Since ChatGPT launched late 2022, it’s felt like AI has accelerated its presence in every facet of our digital lives. In the workplace, it’s changing how recruiters look at resumes, changing how employees are expected to work, and putting jobs at risk. Employers have often pushed for AI, boasting its upside for efficiency’s sake, but emerging research tells a different story.

“AI promises to act as an amplifier that will drive efficiency and make work easier, but workers that are using these AI tools report that they are intensifying rather than simplifying work,” a team of Boston Consulting Group researchers wrote in their new study, titled “When Using AI Leads to ‘Brain Fry’,” published in the Harvard Business Review.

These researchers set out to understand what powered the exhaustion some workers reported feeling after using AI tools. Working with AI is purported as a way to make work easier, and BCG researchers wanted to uncover what’s missing from the picture.

Through their survey-based study of 1,488 full-time US-located workers, researchers found a phenomenon that they labeled “AI brain fry,” which describes the “mental fatigue from excessive use or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity.” Some study participants experiencing this said they felt a buzzing (not in a euphoric way), mental fog, slowed decision making, and, on the more extreme side, headaches. 

These effects were especially present for individuals who are more involved in overseeing and monitoring their AI. Researchers found “AI brain fry” was most common in those working in marketing, HR, operations, engineering and software development, and finance and accounting, in that order. They also determined that the brain fry phenomenon was more common for those who experienced increased workload thanks to AI. 

“Firms are incentivizing employees to build and oversee complex teams of agents,” the team wrote in HBR. “Contrary to the promise of having more time to focus on meaningful work, juggling and multitasking can become the definitive features of working with AI. Unsurprisingly, workers are finding themselves up against the limits of their cognitive abilities when working this way.”

Data showed that using three AI tools at once got workers to a productivity sweet spot. Anything above that? Productivity tanked.

New findings around “AI brain fry” are not all bad. The BCG researchers reported that when AI is used to replace repetitive tasks and routines, burnout scores were lower. “This highlights the subtle-but-important distinction between the types of stress that AI can alleviate, and those that it may worsen,” they penned.

Mental fatigue and burnout are real, especially in a time when Black women in leadership are burning out disproportionately. This study does the important work of distinguishing between AI-powered work that’s empowering to the user versus AI-powered work that can cause harm.

Ahead, researchers suggest workplaces and their leaders get explicit about what’s expected around AI usage and workloads. They advise shifting metrics from being about quantity to quality and measurable impact, suggesting the strategic deployment of “human attention as a finite resource,” they wrote. After all, “AI brain fry” exposes how powerful and seemingly helpful tools can have adverse effects on the brains of those using them. 

“We must learn how to apply that same power toward positive human and business outcomes alike,” researchers concluded.