10-12-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

With AI productivity, your team is burning out

How to understand the impact that getting work done faster is having on your workforce

[Photo: Getty Images]

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I’ve been working in the tech industry for over 20 years, and for about half that time I’ve been in a leadership role. I’ve always believed that to achieve good results, it’s essential to keep an eye on teams’ wellbeing because how people feel shows up in their work.

People don’t always want to talk about what’s troubling them, so you need to spot it early when something’s gone wrong. I had a simple indicator: If someone started taking longer to get things done, I knew it was time for an unscheduled one-to-one. The drop in performance usually came down to overload or someone not having taken a holiday for a long time.

As AI has spread, this indicator has become less reliable. With AI tools taking over part of the workload, people can still hit their usual output even when they are a step away from burnout. This is not just my observation. In a study of 442 employees at tech companies, the link between burnout and a drop in productivity was weaker among those who used AI more.

So, if the dashboard says nothing about how the team is feeling, how can a manager spot the first signs of burnout in a team that is delivering excellent results?

AI really does........

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