When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, PR agency founder Anurag Garg was eager for his team of 11 to quickly incorporate the technology in th

Will AI make work burnout worse?

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2024-10-30 21:00:03

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, PR agency founder Anurag Garg was eager for his team of 11 to quickly incorporate the technology in their workflow, so the business could keep up with its competitors.

Mr Garg encouraged his employees to use the AI language tool for the agency’s long list of daily tasks, from coming up with story ideas for clients, pitches to offer the media, and transcribing meeting and interview notes.

Staff reported that tasks were in fact taking longer as they had to create a brief and prompts for ChatGPT, while also having to double check its output for inaccuracies, of which there were many.

“There were too many distractions. The team complained that their tasks were taking twice the amount of time because we were now expecting them to use AI tools," says Mr Garg, who runs Everest PR and divides his time between the US and India.

The entire aim of introducing AI to the company was to simplify people’s workflows, but it was actually giving everyone more work to do, and making them feel stressed and burnt out."