Study Confirms Increased Workload After Mass AI Adoption

Instead of easing workloads, artificial intelligence is currently accelerating and complicating work processes. This conclusion was reached by analysts at ActivTrak.

A comprehensive study covered 164,000 employees from 1,111 companies. The specialists analyzed 443 million work hours, comparing the digital activity of personnel six months before and after the introduction of AI tools.

Findings

ActivTrak found that AI has increased workloads across nearly all areas:

• Communication time via email and messaging apps has more than doubled;
• Usage of business systems (HR, accounting) surged by 94%;
• Duration of focused and uninterrupted work (coding, strategic planning, etc.) decreased by 9%.

“It’s not that AI doesn’t create efficiency. The freed-up resources are immediately redirected to other tasks. This is where the unnoticed growth of tasks occurs,” explained Gabriela Mauch from ActivTrak in a comment to WSJ.

Statistics also debunk the theory of reduced working hours. AI users work an average of eight minutes longer than their colleagues who do not use these new tools.

Adoption Trends

The proportion of employees using artificial intelligence rose from 53% to 80%. Time spent working with AI increased eightfold.

Source: ActivTrak.

As of January 2024, the average audience retention rate stands at 92%, with the figure never dropping below 88%. Nearly 40% of users have interacted with the technology for 13 consecutive months or longer.

In comparison, only 9% used AI for just one month. However, even with near-universal adoption, there is still no evidence that neural networks are freeing up work time.

The highest productivity is shown by those who spend 7-10% of their working time on artificial intelligence, but this category includes only 3% of users. Most use AI for just 1% of their time.

Source: ActivTrak.

Most Popular Tools

In 2023, companies used an average of two AI tools, but by 2025, this number is expected to rise to seven. Meanwhile, 83% of organizations are using six or more solutions at once. Instead of consolidating around a few platforms, the toolkit is only expanding.

ChatGPT remains the leader in usage time, surpassing its closest competitor, Cursor, by 27 times. The website chatgpt.com climbed from 19th to 5th place among the most visited sites, increasing its annual audience by 145%.

Source: ActivTrak.

Recall that in February, similar observations were shared by Harvard Business Review. Experts monitored changes in the habits of employees at an American tech company with approximately 200 staff members over eight months.