In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it.
The promise of generative AI lies not only in what it can do for work, but in how thoughtfully it is integrated into the daily rhythm. Our findings suggest that without intention, AI makes it easier to do more—but harder to stop. An AI practice offers a counterbalance: a way to preserve moments for recovery and reflection even as work accelerates. The question facing organizations is not whether AI will change work, but whether they will actively shape that change—or let it quietly shape them.
This seems to be the trend in technology. Instead of freeing up time, it makes us busier than ever. It is more important than ever to be intentional about how we use it.
I feel like I can be MUCH more ambitious with what I can implement given what the current tools can do. The tools definitely can dramatically speed up certain tasks, like writing code, but they can’t really speed up other aspects of software development, like deciding what to actually implement.
AI tools are an execution speed multiplier. If anything, they are a decision making speed reducer, as now it’s much easier to gather together research and background information into concise summaries. The smart people realize that after they have these concise summaries they then need to do the due diligence of actually understanding the nuance, which was mostly blindly ignored before because no one realized it existed as the research effort was simply too daunting.