According to a report by Glean, employees now spend nearly one full workday a week ‘bottsitting.’ This work includes everything requires to make AI usable, including debugging mistakes, fixing wrong answers, and checking outputs.
Companies have pushing themselves to not be left behind in the AI arms race. But a new report by Glean paints a grim picture of employees who feel overly disengaged and overwhelmed as a result of excessive AI usage. Thanks to AI’s sloppy, error-ridden work without substance, employees are left to spend fix things rather than spend time more productively.
“As the AI toggle tax increases, workers begin to cognitively offload,” the Glean authors wrote. “They hand more of their thinking and judgment over to the machine. They start to cut corners. They stop checking outputs, verifying sources, and asking whether the AI’s recommendations make any sense.”
Nearly 28% of AI users have blamed AI for error-ridden outputs. As for heavy AI users at work, that rose to nearly 41%.
Glean said the process is a “slow surrender of agency,” rather than a single bad decision. “First, workers stop fully understanding the output,” the report said. “Then they stop interrogating it. Eventually, they stop feeling responsible for it at all.”
Workers are also blaming AI for problems with their work. Nearly 28% of AI users have blamed AI for error-ridden outputs. As for heavy AI users at work, that rose to nearly 41%.
In addition to the proliferation of work-slop, excessive AI use can also result in employees who feel worn out, disengaged and unhappy with their employers. According to the report this phenomenon was frequent among so-called AI bottsitters. Those who spend 40% of their spend on AI botsitting activities are more likely than their peers to hunt for greener pastures.
Glean’s report was also able to break down its finding by role. According to the report, HR has higher-than-average levels of AI adoption. Nearly 90% of surveyed HR professionals reported using AI at work. HR professionals now use AI in low-stakes applications such as writing content, administration and coordination.
Glean also noted that “HR workers are more likely than the average employee to report that AI is already shaping consequential people decisions,” with roughly one-third of HR professionals said AI was involved in hiring process and decisions.
The heavy and proliferate use of AI in hiring decisions remains at the center of a high-profile lawsuit against HR vendor Workday. It was among the earliest cases to apply a theory of AI-based discrimination. According to the plaintiffs, they were allegedly rejected by AI for positions they had applied for based on protected characteristics such as age and race.
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