Hari Om Gaur

A super interesting new study from Harvard Business Review. A 8-month field study at a US tech company with about 200 employees found that AI use did not shrink work, it intensified it, and made employees busier. Task expansion happened because AI filled in gaps in knowledge, so people started doing work that used to belong to other roles or would have been outsourced or deferred. That shift created extra coordination and review work for specialists, including fixing AI-assisted drafts and coaching colleagues whose work was only partly correct or complete. Boundaries blurred because starting became as easy as writing a prompt, so work slipped into lunch, meetings, and the minutes right before stepping away. Multitasking rose because people ran multiple AI threads at once and kept checking outputs, which increased attention switching and mental load. Over time, this faster rhythm raised expectations for speed through what became visible and normal, even without explicit pressure from managers.

[1/2] Google raised our Workspace pricing by 35% to "reflect the significant added AI value" they claim we are receiving. There's just one problem with that: we have all AI features turned off, and explicitly don't want them.

To Steve Jobs, every feature, every detail, every pixel had to earn its place. If something didn't serve a clear purpose, it was out. This was the philosophy of Apple. No clutter, only focus & clarity.