When companies first started rolling out AI tools, many promised a future where employees would finally get some breathing room. With AI handling routine tasks—from drafting emails to debugging code—workers could focus on more meaningful, “deep” work… or maybe even leave the office on time.
But reality hasn’t quite matched the hype.
Kelly Jones, Cisco’s Chief People Officer, recently told *Business Insider* that one of the biggest mistakes companies make during AI adoption is this: **as soon as AI frees up time, they pile on more work**.
“The worst thing you can do when encouraging AI adoption is to say, ‘Great—you’ve saved two hours today, so now here are three new things for you to do,’” Jones said. Not only does that kill morale, but it also stifles innovation at its most fragile stage.
And yet, that’s exactly what’s happening in many workplaces.
Take the case of a Microsoft manager who reported that AI slashed his coding time by 70%. Sounds like a win—until you realize his overall workload didn’t shrink at all. The time he saved wasn’t returned to him; it was simply reallocated by his employer.
This pattern reveals a growing tension in the early days of AI integration: **productivity is up, but work hours aren’t down**. Leaders often talk about using AI to enable “higher-value” work—but rarely suggest that employees might actually get more downtime, flexibility, or autonomy over how they spend their reclaimed hours.
Jones argues that AI should be introduced as a tool that genuinely helps people **reclaim part of their day**, not as another top-down mandate. “Make it really relevant to the day-to-day,” she advises. When employees see AI as something that lightens their load—not adds to it—they’re far more likely to experiment, adopt, and innovate.
Of course, not everyone waits for permission. Some workers have quietly used AI to automate half their tasks and spent the extra time browsing Reddit or catching up on YouTube. And while that might sound subversive, Jones doesn’t see it as a problem. “If you’re doing better work in less time,” she said, “there’s no negative to that.”
The real challenge lies ahead: **how do we redesign work itself**?
As AI takes over more routine tasks, organizations must decide what humans should still do—and how to redistribute the remaining work fairly. This isn’t just a tech question; it’s a human one. And according to Jones, it’s precisely where HR needs to step in.
“We’re at a precipice,” she said. “We’re moving from managing jobs to redesigning work.”
In the next year or two, HR’s role may shift from enforcing job descriptions to helping teams figure out **what work belongs to people, what belongs to machines, and how the two can collaborate effectively**—without burning out the humans in the process.
Because if AI’s promise is more time, then the least we can do is let people actually keep it.