Study finds heavy AI use is reducing productivity by mentally draining workers

While the adoption of AI into every aspect of everyday life is in full swing and appears unstoppable, a growing body of research points to a concerning reality: heavy use of the technology at work can take a significant toll on mental health, despite its promise to ease workloads.

The latest study highlighting this trend is a US survey of nearly 1,500 full-time workers, which found that a notable share of employees who rely heavily on AI to push their productivity beyond normal limits are experiencing fatigue, as reported by Futurism.

The findings were outlined in a new report published in the Harvard Business Review, with contributions from researchers at the prominent Boston Consulting Group and the University of California.

The researchers gave the phenomenon a striking name: “AI brain fry.”

“One of the reasons we did this work is because we saw this happening to people who were perceived as really high performers,” said Julie Bedard, a partner at BCG and one of the report’s authors.

In the study, 14 percent of workers said they had experienced “mental fatigue that results from excessive use of, interaction with, and/or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity.” The highest rates were reported in marketing, software development, HR, finance, and IT roles.

Many participants described symptoms of brain fry in similar terms, citing a “buzzing” sensation or a mental “fog.” Others reported headaches and slower decision-making.

AI companies often claim the technology can dramatically boost productivity. While that may be the case, it is also enabling workers to multitask at speeds and workloads far beyond their usual limits—something that may be contributing to its cognitive downsides.

The study identified information overload and constant task-switching as key drivers of brain fry. In particular, the most draining aspect of AI use was oversight—the need to continuously monitor AI tools, often multiple systems at once. According to the report, high levels of oversight were linked to a 12 percent increase in mental fatigue.

“I had one tool helping me weigh technical decisions, another spitting out drafts and summaries, and I kept bouncing between them, double-checking every little thing,” one senior engineering manager described in the HBR report. “But instead of moving faster, my brain just started to feel cluttered. Not physically tired, just… crowded. It was like I had a dozen browser tabs open in my head, all fighting for attention.”

“My thinking wasn’t broken, just noisy — like mental static,” the senior manager continued. “What finally snapped me out of it was realizing I was working harder to manage the tools than to actually solve the problem.”

The research also found a link between self-reported AI brain fry and employees’ intention to leave their jobs. Among those experiencing brain fry, intent to quit rose by nearly 10 percent.

As the article notes, “brain fry” could also hurt companies’ bottom lines. Workers experiencing it showed a 33 percent increase in decision fatigue. For multibillion-dollar firms, this could translate into millions of dollars lost each year due to poor decisions or inaction.

By Nazrin Sadigova