Not Threatened, Just Busy: The Within-Person Effects of Daily Generative AI Use

Jingze Wang, Anil R. Doshi, and Blaine Landis

Working paper

We conducted a five-day, within-person experience-sampling experiment with 143 employees across a wide range of jobs and industries, randomly assigning participants each day to either use or refrain from using generative AI. We do not find evidence that daily generative AI use increases anxiety or job insecurity. Instead, daily AI use reshapes how work unfolds over the day. Employees report shifts in task sequence and task scope, higher perceived job demands, stronger perceptions of work tasks as opportunities to learn and improve, and greater appreciation from peers. The increase in perceived job demands, however, is not evenly distributed, with the burden being concentrated among less experienced and lower-ranked employees. Together, these findings suggest that employees experience generative AI less as a threat and more as a tool that intensifies effort while also increasing the social value attached to their contributions.