Leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have repeatedly suggested that the technology will lead to reduced working hours. Executives at companies investing heavily in AI development have claimed that the technology will ultimately allow people to work less. As early as four years ago, a Google engineering director predicted AI would usher in a four-day workweek by 2025. This year, OpenAI formally recommended that companies begin piloting a four-day workweek without pay reductions, asserting that AI will soon accelerate human labor to such an extent that the corporate world should prepare for this shift.
However, a former technical employee at OpenAI, who departed last year, told the BBC that the company did not actually trial the four-day workweek it advocated for others. Instead, this individual described a strenuous work environment characterized by frequent "crisis meetings," weekend work, and intensely competitive performance reviews that could lead to abrupt dismissals. "You go in on Saturday or Sunday just to catch up or make sure things aren't broken," the former employee stated.
Other technology firms have also promoted the idea that AI will effectively decrease the amount of time people need to work. Anthropic has highlighted that its AI chatbot, Claude, can operate for seven hours continuously, a duration equivalent to a full corporate workday. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta has stated that the company is in a period where "AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work," suggesting that these tools enable fewer employees to achieve more than ever before. Meta has since reduced its workforce by 10%, and Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei has cautioned that increasing AI productivity could lead to broader job losses.
Despite these pronouncements from leadership, employees within these same technology companies, who are both developing and utilizing these AI tools, report working significantly more than the standard 40-hour, five-day workweek. These workers describe demanding schedules that contradict the narrative of AI-driven leisure time.