Why Hasn't AI Made Work Easier?
AI Summary
Cal Newport sees the same pattern with AI that played out with email, mobile computing, and video conferencing: a new technology promises to free up time for deep work, then leaves us busier than before without producing more high-value output. He cites a Wall Street Journal piece on a study by ActivTrak that tracked 164,000 workers across 1,000+ employers, comparing 180 days before and after AI adoption.
The results are stark. AI users' time on email, messaging, and chat apps more than doubled. Time on business-management software (HR, accounting) rose 94%. Time on focused, uninterrupted work — the kind needed for complex problems, writing formulas, strategy — fell 9%, versus essentially no change for non-users. Berkeley professor Aruna Ranganathan offers the explanation: "AI makes additional tasks feel easy and accessible, creating a sense of momentum." The hyperactive hive mind dynamic Newport diagnosed for email is now replicating with chatbots — workers iteratively bouncing ideas back and forth, generating drafts that an HBR piece called "workslop" too sloppy to use, sometimes parallelizing the mess with agent swarms.
The activity feels productive. The output isn't. Newport's question for any AI workflow: are you sure you're accelerating the right parts of your job?
Highlights
- ▸ActivTrak study (164,000 workers, 180 days before/after): AI users doubled email/chat time and raised business-software time 94%, while focused deep work fell 9% versus nearly zero change for non-users
- ▸AI is replaying the email pattern: low-friction tools turn the day into furious back-and-forth that feels productive in activity-centric terms but ultimately generates HBR-flagged "workslop"
- ▸The diagnostic question for any AI workflow: which part of your job is being accelerated? If it's not the part that produces value, you've installed a busyness amplifier, not a productivity tool
Original excerpt
I’ve been studying the intersection of digital technology and office work for quite some time. (I find it hard to believe that my book, _Deep Work_, just passed its ten-year anniversary!?) Here’s a pattern I’ve observed again and again:
A new technology promises to speed up some annoying aspects of our jobs. Everyone gets excited about freeing up more time for deep work and leisure. We end up _busier_ than before without producing more of the high-value output that actually moves the needle.
This happened with the front-office IT revolution, and email, and mobile computing, and once again with video-conferencing.
I’m now starting to fear that we’re beginning to encounter the same thing with…
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