No More Than Three: Why AI Has a Negative Impact on Productivity

The tech industry touts AI as the great liberator that will free people from routine work. But, as Bloomberg writes, the AI utopia creates a stream of unending anxiety. Behavioral finance describes this as the productivity paradox: a tool created to save effort turns into an obligation that is impossible to escape. Why does this happen?

The fear of missing out (FOMO) has long been recognized in behavioral finance. Its main characteristic is that it supplants rational decision-making. A study published in the journal *Technology in Society* in 2026 goes a step further: it shows that modern people have developed a new kind of fear—the fear of missing out on opportunities due to AI (AI-FOMO).

The point is that AI makes people feel as though they are losing their autonomy in decision-making and fear that their professional skills will become obsolete; and when it comes to AI in the workplace, there is a fear of a “robot boss.” As a result, anxiety levels rise.

In March 2026, the Boston Consulting Group and the University of California published a study based on a sample of 1,488 employees at large U.S. companies. The authors discuss another modern phenomenon—burnout caused by excessive oversight of AI tools. They even coin the term “AI brain fry,” which literally means “brain overload due to AI.”

Researchers found that people experiencing "brain fry" make 39% more serious mistakes and are just as likely to think about quitting their jobs.

According to Modern Health, one in four workers in the U.S. now reports that AI is having a negative impact on their mental health and notes a direct increase in stress.

A study by the Human Clarity Institute found that 54% of users of AI tools admit to feeling anxious about their dependence on them, while 43% say that verifying the accuracy of AI responses is in itself exhausting and reduces their ability to concentrate. In other words, verification has become a new form of labor—cognitive, not necessarily compensated, and likely excluded from KPIs.

According to estimates by the World Health Organization, anxiety disorders and depression result in approximately 12 billion lost workdays per year worldwide.

Why does this happen? It turns out that a person’s productivity at work increases when they use up to three AI tools at the same time. However, when a fourth and subsequent tools are added, productivity drops sharply.

An obvious analogy from economics comes to mind—the curve of diminishing marginal utility, but as it applies to intellectual labor: at some point, every additional “helper” ceases to be beneficial, and from then on, only gets in the way and even causes harm. At the very least, to the brain.

The tech industry promotes AI as some kind of liberator: we’ll be able to automate many tasks, and humans will simply need to oversee the AI and robots. The reality has turned out to be different. The time freed up is filled with higher-level tasks, leaving no room for mental recovery. Employees find themselves trapped: they are more productive, but not freer.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor