Is AI making work harder? Work may already be harder for HR.

If work wasn’t draining enough, AI might be making it worse…

Most employees (67%) were already experiencing at least one burnout symptom last year, HR Brew previously reported. Now, mental fatigue is getting worse as AI tools infiltrate the workplace, according to recent research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The researchers are calling it “AI brain fry,” or the mental fatigue that comes from using and overseeing AI tools.

“Having to constantly provide oversight and engage in decisions about the quality of work that AI is spitting out, that results in decision fatigue,” Leah Buck, an employee engagement consultant and founder of consulting firm WhyWork, told HR Brew. “It’s a task that is inherently draining psychologically.”

What’s happening? The goal of AI tools is to increase efficiency and productivity, and henceforth make work easier for humans. But 14% of workers have already experienced AI brain fry, the BCG research found, and productivity decreases when workers use four or more AI tools.

When humans work together, they develop a relationship and become attuned to each other’s strengths and weaknesses, Buck told HR Brew, so overseeing a colleague’s work becomes easier over time. But when employees work with agentic AI, the output can be inconsistent, require more oversight, and lead to more mental strain, she added.

“When you’re working with AI agents that often change the way they produce output in any given day…You’re never quite sure what they’re going to spit out,” she said. “That constant oversight and decision-making is really draining for humans.”

On top of still learning how to use and oversee AI tools, employees are also struggling with the job insecurities that AI prompts, Caitlin Collins, organizational psychologist and program strategy director at Betterworks, told HR Brew.

Collins said employees are grappling with questions like: Is AI going to benefit me or replace me? How do I use AI to keep my job? How do I make sure to comply with my company’s AI policies? “The massiveness of the concept of that…I would link it to burnout and stressing some people out,” she added.

Draining HR more than others. Some roles are more likely to experience AI brain fry than others: 26% of marketing professionals, 19% of HR pros, and 18% of engineers said they’ve felt it compared to 6% of legal pros and 9% of product managers.

Some roles are experiencing more AI brain fry than others because AI is taking away creativity, Buck said, which can be the most mentally rewarding part of work. As tasks like writing, designing documents, or strategizing frameworks are “farmed out to AI,” she said, humans are left with mentally draining tasks, like coordination, review, and decision-making.

“It doesn’t allow us the creativity that actually energizes humans, so it’s not surprising that, especially in roles that have to provide a lot of oversight over AI output, we’re seeing a lot of that decision fatigue and mental fatigue creep in,” Buck said.

What can HR do? Employees (and HR pros) shouldn’t struggle with AI alone, Collins said, and it can help if HR creates spaces where employees can communicate and collaborate on what’s working and not working with AI tools.

“Maybe having like, open forums…ways where people are honestly and earnestly trying to sort what this looks like out together,” she said. “Could we create AI, within organizations, AI mentors?...Somebody you can go to to help speed things up or get through learning faster.”

Buck recommends “time-boxing,” where employees designate AI-free hours at the beginning of their days so they can focus on creative tasks before touching an AI tool. This is a “tried and true tool” that can help alleviate burnout and mental fatigue, she added.

As more employees use AI tools, HR teams will need to focus on L&D and communication strategies, Collins said. People leaders should ask themselves: Have we made AI learning materials available? Do employees know how to create an AI agent? What is the company’s policy on specific AI tools? How are policy changes communicated?

“Same with anything that, with any new change, any new program, that we’re really clear on what our learning strategy is and our communication strategy is…and really being clear on expectations,” Collins said. “Trying to slow the pace down so we’re also increasing learning, and then maybe that becomes more of a collaborative approach than everyone just in the fire figuring it out for themselves.”