AI is supposedly bettering our productiveness, with a myriad of instruments now out there to automate menial duties akin to calendar administration, note-taking and e mail writing.
It will be wise to infer then, that AI is decreasing our workloads by taking a few of these time-consuming actions off our plates. However it’s extra difficult than that, as a result of way over merely decreasing our work, AI is remodeling how we work altogether.
From a macro perspective, AI has resulted within the drastic discount and even elimination of some roles solely and, in some cases, the retraining of these people for brand new roles. IKEA, for example, beforehand introduced that it retrained 8,500 name centre employees as design advisers, as a result of AI now handles the vast majority of its calls.
As well as, inside particular roles, AI has now shifted the main target from some duties to others. In advertising for example, whereas there may be instruments to, for instance, extra simply create graphics and movies, there’s additionally now a a lot keener give attention to personalisation as a result of quantity of buyer knowledge entrepreneurs can rapidly analyse.
This setting offers us two questions to think about: 1) How is AI altering how we work? And 2) Are organisations able to help their employees on this new strategy to work?
How AI is altering the way in which we work
At Avilio, in October 2025 we commissioned an unbiased survey of 1,200 staff throughout UK, assessing the impression of AI on their work. Over half (53%) reported that AI is making them extra productive, as extra handbook duties get automated. Contemplating how AI has proliferated throughout all features of working life, you would possibly anticipate this determine to be greater.
However right here’s what actually pursuits me. Whereas our examine confirmed the most individuals assume AI is making them extra productive, one other piece of analysis by freelancing platform Upwork just lately discovered that, for the overwhelming majority of the workforce (77%), they really feel that AI is rising their workloads.
Now, you would possibly assume that these two statements are in direct battle. However that’s not the case – the connection between AI and productiveness is advanced, and truly each are true. It is vitally doable that AI can concurrently make you extra productive (it takes you much less time to do the identical quantity of labor) whereas additionally including to your workload (both by opening up new alternatives you might want to discover, or by including to your obligations as a result of managers anticipate you to do extra together with your time).
Let’s return to the instance of a advertising supervisor: a marketer finishing extra work with assistance from AI is extra productive, however the fundamentals and calls for of the job have modified to the extent that extra is being demanded of them.
A few of this demand stems from employers, with firms and leaders having unrealistic expectations of the productiveness beneficial properties AI can carry. In different phrases, whereas a brand new AI device would possibly enhance a workforce’s productiveness by 5%, administration had been anticipating that acquire to be 10% and making up workloads with additional work to that diploma.
As well as, we should additionally issue within the time spent studying new instruments and checking the work of AI. Earlier than anybody is absolutely competent in how a selected device works, utilizing it’ll take extra time not much less. Moreover, time is additionally spent drafting detailed prompts, fact-checking AI output and fixing errors.
Which means that whereas AI has made us extra productive it’s not introduced employees or managers the aid that we would have anticipated. And, since AI is creating at tempo, learn how to greatest implement and use it’s an ever-changing problem. These shifting sands have a big impression on staff who are required to adapt repeatedly to altering roles and expectations.
Are organisations able to help their staff?
Revisiting our new analysis, one of many key findings was that 46% of staff consider AI will change their job considerably over the following two years. Nonetheless, since nobody can know precisely what these modifications can be, this brings its personal strain and uncertainty. And that’s mirrored in the truth that 31% are fearful their job will turn into out of date altogether inside the subsequent 5 years.
Greater than a 3rd (36%) of respondents mentioned that they’re susceptible to burnout so, for a nation that’s already contending with excessive ranges of stress, there’s a pertinent subject right here in whether or not AI helps or hindering within the quest for productiveness and work-life stability. The truth is, when requested about which components trigger them probably the most stress in relation to their work, one in ten named the impression of AI on their job and sector as probably the most vital trigger.
In accordance with the authorities in 2023-4, 16.4 million working days had been misplaced as a consequence of stress, despair or nervousness. Given the fee to staff and employers of stress and burnout, organisations have to take steps to make it possible for their groups are effectively geared up to handle the AI transition.
What can leaders do?
Whereas nobody can actually eradicate the uncertainty round how AI will remodel job roles or total sectors, there are steps that leaders can take to guard their staff from pointless stress:
- Introduce AI instruments steadily quite than making sweeping modifications. Ensure that that is accomplished in session with staff in order that they know what’s coming and the way it will impression them. Permit time to regulate to utilizing new fashions and supply the help wanted to implement them successfully.
- Maintain dialogues open regularly in order that points will be raised and mentioned in an open and trustworthy method with out concern of repercussions.
- Carefully monitor workloads and the way these are altering to stop unrealistic expectations.
- Be certain that staff get the essential coaching and help as their roles evolve.
- Be certain that employees stay blissful as their workload will increase consistent with being extra productive.
It’s lengthy been accepted that happier staff are extra engaged, productive and dependable, and that this interprets straight right into a more healthy backside line for companies. Nonetheless, stress ranges in the UK stay stubbornly excessive, and much from being a possible silver bullet, AI would possibly exacerbate current issues.
The causes of stress are advanced, however amidst the speedy adoption AI, enterprise leaders can undoubtedly take motion to provide their groups vital help and make sure that the results of fixing expertise are usually not a contributor to burnout.
