The BCG consultant behind the 'AI brain fry' study says it can be overcome
This is your brain on AI, according to new research.
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Culture
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2 mins
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Business Insider
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Lakshmi Varanasi
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While AI tools increase productivity, they may also cause 'brain fry,' a mental fatigue affecting workers who use the tech a lot.
- Relying on AI can make you more efficient up to a point, a new study found.
- It can then tax you emotionally, leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed.
- The author says this sort of "AI brain fry" can be overcome.
As artificial intelligence tools become embedded in everyday work, consultants are starting to worry about a cognitive side effect: People relying on them so heavily that their own thinking begins to splinter.
Julie Bedard, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group and a coauthor of a recent study on the topic, said on the tech podcast "Hard Fork" on Friday that she believes there are ways to overcome the AI-induced phenomenon she called "brain fry."
Bedard and her colleagues explored the phenomenon in a study published earlier this month in the Harvard Business Review, which surveyed 1,488 full-time US workers at large companies across a range of industries.
The researchers found that 14% of workers reported experiencing symptoms such as mental fog, headaches, and slower decision-making — what the authors describe as "AI brain fry." Rates were higher in fields such as marketing, human resources, operations, and software engineering than in industries such as legal and compliance.
Bedard said on "Hard Fork" that this form of mental fatigue is distinct from traditional workplace burnout. Instead, it stems from the unusually high cognitive load required to supervise AI systems and evaluate their outputs.
"Burnout is physical and mental exhaustion. It's more emotional. It's more about how I feel about work, and do I feel like I'm doing a good job at work," she said.
As more jobs shift toward managing AI agents rather than completing tasks directly, workers must constantly review outputs, verify information, and decide how to use the results — a process that can require intense concentration.
Bedard said this can often be overcome by first recognizing that it's a real thing, and then talking to your manager about it. "I think it's about creating that open dialogue about how should I use AI? When is it valuable?" she said on "Hard Fork."
The study also found that AI tools can boost productivity, but only up to a point. Workers who moved from using one AI tool to two saw a noticeable jump in productivity. The gains shrank when employees added a third tool, and productivity began to decline as they juggled more systems.
Matthew Kropp, another coauthor of the study and a BCG managing director, described the trend as an early warning sign.
"We look at this as kind of the canary in the coal mine," Kropp previously told Business Insider, noting that engineers and other early adopters who manage multiple AI agents are among the first to experience the effects.
Still, the researchers emphasized that the problem isn't AI adoption itself. When AI replaces routine or repetitive tasks, the study found that burnout can actually decline — even if some workers still report mental fatigue.
Correction: March 16, 2026 — An earlier version of this story misattributed two quotes. It has been updated to accurately reflect Julie Bedard's comments on the "Hard Fork" podcast.
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