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Opinion

AI could unlock a four-day week – so why does work feel more intense?

Toby Hough, VP of people and culture at HiBob, discusses how AI is making work faster but also more intense, urging organisations to use efficiency gains wisely.

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If AI is making work faster, why doesn’t my workload feel any lighter?. That’s the question being asked in one-to-ones, team conversations, exit interviews, and across businesses. 

It’s a fair challenge. Over the last few years, work-life balance and flexibility have moved from perks to expectations. We are in a new era, where how work feels matters just as much as what gets delivered. Against that backdrop, it’s easy to see why many employees assume that if tasks become quicker and easier, working weeks should naturally shrink.

But that’s not what’s happening in practice. Instead of creating the four-day week, for many, work is becoming faster, fuller, and harder to switch off from. In fact, research of our US counterparts suggests as AI is adopted, employees don’t just work faster – they take on a broader scope of tasks and extend work into more hours of the day, often without being asked.

As AI removes administrative burden and accelerates delivery, expectations are rising just as quickly. What initially feels like a productivity gain has quickly reset the baseline for what teams are expected to deliver.

For HR leaders, this creates a growing tension. AI is driving real business value, but it’s also changing the day-to-day experience of work. And without clear direction, those two fundamentals risk drifting further apart.

When work gets easier, expectations don’t stay the same

What we’re seeing with AI follows a familiar pattern. Email was meant to make communication more efficient, but it also created an expectation of constant availability. Smartphones gave people flexibility but also made it harder to switch off. The takeaway is that when work becomes more efficient, it doesn’t tend to reduce workload – it changes what is expected.

AI is accelerating that same dynamic.

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In addition to looking at how much time is saved, organisations are quickly recalibrating what ‘good’ looks like. Faster output becomes the standard, not a bonus.

You can see this shift most clearly in how roles are evolving. Imagine a people manager who previously spent a significant part of their week on reporting, documentation, and coordination. With AI reducing much of that workload, their role doesn’t necessarily become lighter. Instead, expectations expand – more initiatives, more strategic input, more responsiveness – because there is now capacity to do more.

This expectation changes the rhythm of work itself. There are fewer natural endpoints; fewer moments where something is clearly finished. Work becomes more continuous, with a steady pressure to keep moving forward.

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These rising expectations aren’t inherently negative. In many ways, they reflect progress. But without intervention, they will grow unchecked. That’s where HR leaders need to step in – not to slow progress, but to shape it.

If work isn’t redesigned, AI will simply intensify it

The risk organisations face isn’t just that AI fails to deliver value. It’s also that it delivers value in a way that makes work harder to sustain.

Most organisations are still focused on adoption: where AI can improve efficiency, how it can speed up processes, and how it can increase output. What’s often missing is a more fundamental question: what should work actually look like once those gains are realised?

Without that step, AI compresses work rather than reducing it. Fewer people are expected to deliver more, more quickly, with less friction. Over time, that creates an environment where responsiveness becomes the default and recovery time disappears.

This is where HR leaders have a critical role to play, and earlier than many organisations expect.

Shaping how work evolves with AI needs to happen alongside adoption. That means being deliberate about how new capacity is used. When time is saved, leaders need to decide what stops – not just what speeds up.

It also means resetting expectations around pace. Just because something can be done instantly doesn’t mean it should be expected instantly. Without that clarity, urgency becomes the default. Speed, in itself, is not always a measure of effectiveness. Many complex challenges benefit from time, reflection and iteration. When everything is accelerated, organisations risk prioritising speed over quality of thinking, leading to more reactive decisions and less considered outcomes.

There is also an opportunity to rethink roles more meaningfully. AI should create space for higher-value work – judgement, creativity, collaboration – rather than simply increasing the volume of tasks. Alongside this, protecting recovery time becomes essential. Without it, any efficiency gains are quickly offset by increased pressure, followed by burnout and disengagement.

The future of work won’t be shorter – unless we choose it to be

The idea that AI will naturally lead to a four-day week is compelling, but it doesn’t reflect how work actually evolves. Technology creates capacity. Organisations decide what happens to it.

Right now, many are choosing to use AI to increase speed, output, and efficiency. That’s delivering clear business value, but it’s also contributing to a more intense working experience.

For HR leaders, the opportunity is to take a more deliberate approach. To define what good looks like, to set realistic expectations, and to ensure that productivity gains translate into better work, not just more work.

The future of work won’t be defined by AI alone, but by the decisions organisations make about how its gains are used.

Toby Hough is VP of People and Culture at HiBob

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