AI is saving time, but workers are not getting less busy

A Wall Street Journal survey on Oct. 28, 2025 found 82% of executives using generative AI weekly and 46% daily, up from 37% in 2023, yet the promised slack time is not showing up on workers’ calendars. The gap is getting wider as companies push AI harder while employees say the technology often adds supervision instead of relief.

A June 12, 2026 Los Angeles Times report made that tension plain: office workers can save hours with AI, then lose much of that time back to supervising the tools. Glean’s Work AI Index 2026 says workers report saving 11 hours a week, but the same report frames the catch as “botsitting,” the extra human labor needed to check outputs, test results and clean up mistakes. A February 9, 2026 Harvard Business Review article reached a similar conclusion, arguing that AI does not reduce work so much as intensify it.

The pressure is even more visible inside tech itself. The Wall Street Journal has reported that some Silicon Valley AI workers are putting in 100-hour workweeks to keep up with the race, and the old “996” schedule, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, has returned as shorthand for extreme startup culture. That matters because it shows AI is not only a productivity tool; it is also becoming a reason to demand more from workers, not less.

The optimism from management remains strong. On Nov. 25, 2025, a Wall Street Journal item said a new McKinsey Global Institute estimate put existing technology at the level of performing 57% of Americans’ work hours, a figure that underscores how much labor leaders believe can already be automated. But the lived experience in many offices is that each saved minute can be claimed back by oversight, verification and tighter deadlines.

That is why IT and HR departments are increasingly coordinating to manage AI-driven disruption and employee anxiety, while some bosses are telling workers to use AI or risk being fired. The result is a workplace where executives talk about efficiency and future flexibility, but many employees are seeing longer hours, closer monitoring and higher expectations instead of shorter days.