Welcome back to The AI Shift, our weekly dive into the impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market. To date, much of the conversation around AI and jobs has assumed that automating tasks will lead to less work for humans — either jobs will be displaced, productivity gains will give workers more leisure time, or a combination of the two. But this week, amid mounting reports of AI-induced burnout, we ask whether — at least in the short term — AI might lead to people working more, not less.

John writes

One of the more surprising side-effects of the agentic AI explosion over the past few months has been the growing number of anecdotal reports of people in tech and adjacent fields experiencing burnout, as they struggle to settle into a new working rhythm now that they find themselves effectively leading teams of tireless digital workers.