By @AnthropicAI
Publication Date: 2026-01-29 12:00:00
Research shows that AI helps people complete parts of their work faster. In an observational study of Claude.ai data, we found that AI can speed up some tasks by 80%. But does this increase in productivity come with trade-offs? Other research shows that people who use AI support become less engaged with their work and expend less effort – in other words, they shift their thinking to AI.
It’s unclear whether this cognitive burden can prevent people from expanding their skills in the workplace or, in the case of programming, from understanding the systems they’re building. Our latest study, a randomized controlled trial with software developers as participants, examines this potential downside of using AI in the workplace.
This question has far-reaching implications—including for the design of AI products that facilitate learning, for how workplaces should approach AI policies, and for broader societal resilience. We focused on coding, an area where AI tools are quickly becoming a…
