AI Push Drives 90-Hour Weeks Despite Shorter-Workweek Promises

Technology executives have cast generative AI as a route to shorter workweeks, with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan among those predicting that automation could eventually reduce the standard schedule to three days. The promise matters because OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google are racing to release more capable models, while productivity gains are increasingly used to justify faster output. Whether those gains improve employees’ lives or simply raise performance expectations has become a central question in the AI labor debate.

The BBC reported on Aug. 10, 2026, that employees working on AI projects described crisis meetings, weekend shifts and crunch periods exceeding 90 hours a week. The accounts echo research published in Harvard Business Review on Feb. 9 by UC Berkeley Haas scholars Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye. Their eight-month study of a roughly 200-person U.S. technology company found that generative AI led workers to move faster, take on broader tasks and extend work across more hours of the day.