Heavy AI use at work is tied to higher burnout, Upwork study says

Tech giants promised that workplace AI would take over the drudgery, freeing us up to do meaningful work and connect with our fellow humans. Instead, it might just be frying our brains.

A new study from freelance marketplace Upwork surveyed 2,500 workers across several countries, including executives, full-time staff, and freelancers. The findings reveal a disturbing paradox: the most devoted users of AI tools and autonomous agents are 88% more likely to experience burnout than their peers.

Even worse, these power users are twice as likely to quit their jobs.

More polite to robots than humans

Workers are no longer treating AI as just software. A staggering 90% of respondents said they now view AI as a coworker rather than a tool.

That shift is warping workplace dynamics in strange ways. About 85% of workers admitted they are actually more polite to AI than to their human colleagues. On top of that, 67% reported trusting AI more than the people they work with.

Upwork notes that while these high-output employees are squeezing unprecedented productivity out of AI, they are losing basic psychological safety and team connection in the process. Isolated behind their screens, they burn out fast.

Interestingly, 88% of freelancers surveyed reported that AI positively impacted their careers without the mental health fallout seen among full-time employees. The report suggests freelancers use AI as a learning partner rather than a surrogate coworker. That said, take this with a grain of salt: Upwork has a vested interest in promoting freelance life, and earlier studies have shown freelancers often struggle with isolation anyway.

Why it matters

The narrative that AI simply reduces toil is fundamentally flawed.

For employees, leaning too heavily on agents to shoulder your workload can easily backfire into extreme isolation. When productivity spikes, managers often just pile on more work rather than letting employees rest. Talking to a chatbot all day might feel frictionless, but trading human friction for digital comfort leaves workers without real support when stress peaks.

For companies racing to deploy AI agents, this should be a wake-up call. When two-thirds of your workforce trusts an algorithm over their teammates, team culture is eroding from the inside out. We think organizations need to realize that productivity gains mean nothing if your most capable workers end up exhausted and walking out the door.