The promise of workplace AI has often been framed in simple terms: automate routine tasks, save time and reduce the burden on employees. But new research from Jabra suggests the reality is more complicated.
Eighty-five percent of workers say they are doing more work in at least one area than they were a year ago. That could appear to be a warning sign for organisations already concerned about workload and burnout. But Daniella Bell, Future of Work Thought Leadership Manager at Jabra, says the data points to a more nuanced shift.
“I definitely lean more towards it being an opportunity,” Bell says.
“We see huge growth in elements like strategy, creative tasks that people do together, and collaboration. Those are the tasks that make people most motivated. They’re the things that deplete energy the least.”
The question, then, is not simply whether AI is creating more work. It is whether organisations are changing the way work is done as that workload evolves.
From Production to Judgement
The research found that heavy AI users were around 60 percent more likely to report increased strategic work compared to non-AI users, more than twice as likely to report doing more creative work, and more than three times as likely to say they collaborate more than they did a year ago.
That points to a change in the role of the knowledge worker. AI can produce a first draft, summarise research or analyse information quickly. The human contribution is increasingly about deciding what matters, what is worth pursuing and whether the output is good enough to act upon.
“AI is taking on more of the production,” Bell says. “People are spending much more of their time on judgement-based tasks.”
That means the skills organisations have traditionally valued are not becoming less important. If anything, they are becoming more critical. Critical thinking, writing, communication and the ability to work constructively with others cannot simply be handed over to an AI tool.
“The question used to be: can you make this deck or can you make that analysis?” Bell says. “Now it’s: can you tell what’s worth making, what’s worth keeping and, more importantly, what’s worth sharing?”
For organisations, that has implications for how AI training is designed. Teaching employees how to create prompts, build agents or automate repetitive tasks is necessary, but it is not sufficient. People also need the confidence and capability to assess an AI-generated answer, identify weak reasoning and apply judgement in context.
More Work Does Not Have to Mean More Stress
The findings also carry a clear warning. When asked what made their workday harder, employees most often cited workload and an unrealistic pace of work. A quarter associated work with stress.
However, Bell says the relationship between more work and poorer wellbeing is not straightforward.
Among employees who reported taking on more work, those whose ways of working had changed substantially reported lower stress and exhaustion, alongside higher motivation and career optimism. That change might involve redesigning workflows, changing the tasks people undertake or developing a more conversational relationship with AI.
“The risk is really taking on more without changing how you work,” Bell says.
