Burnout reveals up as feeling consistently exhausted, emotionally checked out from work, and struggling to get issues finished successfully.
Delmaine Donson | E+ | Getty Pictures
Burnout is a rising concern throughout industries, however synthetic intelligence is quietly altering the sport.
Acknowledged by the World Well being Group as an “occupational phenomenon,” burnout is greater than only a private difficulty — it is a enterprise one.
Based on a 2025 examine in The American Journal of Preventive Medication, burnout prices U.S. corporations between $4,000 and $21,000 per worker every year — or as much as $5 million yearly for a median U.S. firm with 1,000 staff.
ChatGPT could be a phenomenal pondering associate. It isn’t simply an upskill — it is a reinvention. If persons are keen to do the work, it might be the largest alternative of our time.
Caroline Stokes
Management strategist and writer
To fight burnout, many corporations are turning to AI instruments like ChatGPT and Copilot. These automate repetitive duties, summarize data, and help with content material creation and challenge administration. A world examine by the College of Melbourne and KPMG Worldwide of greater than 32,000 employees from 47 nations discovered that 58% of staff deliberately use AI at work, with one-third utilizing it weekly or every day.
But many employees nonetheless lose beneficial time, spending 2.6 hours a day, or 13 hours every week — round a 3rd of the typical work week — on duties that AI may simply deal with, in response to a survey by GoTo and analysis agency Office Intelligence of two,500 staff and IT leaders across the globe.
Headspace’s Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Jenna Glover described AI as a “very useful companion.”
“It may be a terrific assistant when it comes to lightening, what has been, traditionally, duties that simply tackle a number of cognitive load,” she advised CNBC Make It.
How is AI serving to burnout?
Workplaces utilizing AI instruments noticed a 25% drop in emotional exhaustion, in response to a February 2025 survey of 200 IT professionals. AI methods flagged 30% of individuals as prone to burnout — primarily based on components like lengthy hours and low engagement — permitting for early intervention methods to be put in place.
“AI can scale back stress by giving staff personalised nudges — from suggesting brief breaks to rebalancing workloads throughout a group,” Francis Hellyer, CEO of AI-powered international journey and experiences platform, Tickadoo, advised CNBC Make It.
As a substitute of lightening the load, it is really simply creating room for extra to be put in your plate.
Jenna Glover
Chief Scientific Officer at Headspace
Headspace’s Glover, in the meantime, stated AI can help common workload check-ins, flag when duties change into unbalanced, and ship pulse surveys to assemble well timed suggestions — all beneficial instruments for sustaining group wellbeing.
For Caroline Stokes, management strategist and writer, ChatGPT could be a “phenomenal pondering associate.”
“It isn’t simply an upskill — it is a reinvention. If persons are keen to do the work, it might be the largest alternative of our time,” she stated.
To fight burnout, many corporations are turning to AI instruments like ChatGPT and Copilot.
Sopa Pictures | Lightrocket | Getty Pictures
Staff who use AI to ease their workload are typically extra productive, really feel extra in management throughout operational, emotional, and cognitive areas, and help their leaders — finally driving higher outcomes, Stokes stated.
“The earlier a CEO can do the work to know how an built-in AI system goes to not solely help their very own psychological well being, their very own burnout, however their individuals’s burnout and psychological well being, it will not be this ugly elephant within the room anymore,” she added.
Some corporations are already leveraging the expertise for psychological well being. Headspace’s AI companion Ebb has been rolled out throughout 2,000 enterprises in an effort to assist with office stress, behavior constructing, and anxiousness administration.
However can AI even be a part of the issue?
It is clear that AI is reworking the office — however some query whether or not it is at all times for the higher, arguing that it might be pushing some staff towards burnout, reasonably than serving to them keep away from it.
A current survey discovered that 45% of U.S. employees who use AI ceaselessly usually tend to endure excessive burnout, whereas 38% of rare customers of the expertise could endure the identical destiny, and 35% of non-users. The information comes from Quantum Office, one of many largest worker expertise databases within the U.S., primarily based on insights from over 700,000 individuals throughout over 8,000 organizations.
Utilizing AI instruments all through a full workday can really feel the identical as spending 9 hours on the health club, warned Stokes — emphasizing the necessity to give the mind time to relaxation, reset, and get well.
That is as soon as employees have discovered how you can use it. AI literacy is one other problem. Not all staff are aware of how you can use these instruments successfully, including strain on prime of present workloads.
“It is vitally exhausting after we’re utilizing an AI device to maintain going, as a result of it is like an encyclopaedia of all the things, ask it something, and to have it course of something, consider something, and also you’re simply taking place the final word rabbit gap. Our brains nonetheless must relaxation,” Stokes stated.
She warns that corporations counting on AI to switch headcount could also be unintentionally fueling burnout.
Some staff utilizing AI to spice up productiveness are conducting duties sooner — however they’re additionally taking over extra work. “As a substitute of lightening the load, it is really simply creating room for extra to be put in your plate,” Glover stated.
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