Business · Fortune Technology
AI promises to free workers from grunt work, but psychologists say those mindless tasks are exactly what our brains need to recover
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As the debate over AI’s role in the workplace rages on, some experts warn that eliminating menial tasks with AI could come with a hidden cost to productivity.
Key facts
- A 2025 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that, among workers who used AI tools daily, a third said it saved them four hours or more a week
- In a Financial Times op-ed last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said AI agents were helping customer service workers resolve more queries and helping programmers write more code
- Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author of the upcoming book The Mental Strength Playbook, told Fortune they
- Research from the University of Texas at Austin published in the peer-reviewed journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management found that every five minutes of low-effort, low-distraction
Summary
In a Financial Times op-ed last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said AI agents were helping customer service workers resolve more queries and helping programmers write more code. “This is freeing human teams to accelerate projects and deepen relationships with customers,” he said. The message was clear: AI is taking on more of the grunt work so employees can do the tasks that matter most. But in a future where AI absorbs the tasks that make their workdays slightly monotonous—like entering data, organizing their inbox, or updating documents—might they miss the boring tasks that break up the work day?