The productivity gains from AI are so great, companies can lay off thousands of employees and still get the same amount of work done — right? Or maybe it’s the opposite: despite all the hype, any supposed AI productivity boom is a mirage, causing employees, even  developers, to experience heavier workloads.

At the moment, the jury’s still out on whether AI use boosts or busts productivity across the workforce, despite the prediction that American business spending on AI will exceed $200 billion by the end of the year, according to one analysis. 

There’s no doubt workers are turning to AI in a variety of ways. Gallup, for instance, says nearly half of all US workers now use AI. And Hubstaff data published by Worklytics shows that 85% of professionals use the technology— but only for about 4% of their actual work time. That means 96% of work is 100% human. 

Mileage varies according to how you group employee types, too. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that workers using AI saved 5.4% of their work hours, a 1.1% overall increase in productivity. That’s an average, with math and computer workers and within the information services industry reporting higher productivity gains. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, meanwhile, uncovered what it called a “productivity paradox,” in which the productivity gains people think they see aren’t reflected in measurable gains. (It sounds like AI isn’t the only one hallucinating.)

And research from Harvard Business Review (February 2026) found that AI often increases the intensity of work rather than reducing the total workload as originally promised. I’ve heard software developers, in particular, expressing this view and finding that AI is a major source of job burnout. 

All this talk about productivity can miss the qualitative dimension. A 2025 study found that using AI makes employees more innovative by giving them confidence they can handle more complex problems. 

The research goes on and on and, taken together, is more or less inconclusive. However, it’s reasonable to assume that productivity gains from any kind of new technology are likely to take time to show up. It took a decade or more with the PC revolution, for example. While these early days for AI present a mixed picture, productivity gains will surely come, and probably on a massive scale. 

Meanwhile, one slice of the American workforce is already seeing giant gains — remote workers. 

Why AI is working for those working from home

As I’ve argued in this space many times, remote work is a boon for companies in most circumstances. The reasons for this bullish stance are both numerous and, to me, intuitive to the point of being obvious. 

Here are three: 

• Employees have more time because they don’t waste time commuting
• Flex hours are more likely with remote work, so employees can better manage work-life balance, making them happier and more committed to their jobs
• Remote work reduces interruptions, facilitating “deep work,” which, according to deep work expert Cal Newport, is the more valuable type of work for companies 

Now, a new study has added another major benefit for companies in allowing employees to work remotely: AI. 

The study by Michael Blank, a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and colleagues found that AI has a much higher impact in the home than in the office. The study looked at internet browsing data of more than 200,000 U.S. households. 

One reason is surprising: AI helps work-from-home (WFH) employees with both professional and personal tasks, making them more productive at both. The study shows that AI helps people save time and complete tasks much more efficiently when working, planning travel, shopping, figuring out how to fix things around the house and more. 

WFH employees have an AI advantage over office workers, according to the study, because they have the autonomy to integrate AI into their flow without corporate oversight and control. 

Also: Remote employees are more likely to task-switch during the day, alternating between work and personal tasks, something AI facilitates through increased automation. 

Interestingly, the researchers found that employees are taking time saved and using it for more leisure time, as opposed to doing more work or learning new skills. This particular fact is a mixed bag for employers, because while they’re not realizing productivity gains in terms of work performed, they are benefiting from happier employees less prone to dissatisfaction and burnout. 

Blank’s major note of caution is that he found younger people with higher incomes saw the highest productivity gains with AI use at home. He fears a growing “digital divide” between higher and lower income groups and younger and older workers.

It’s about the autonomy as much as the technology

I want to be very clear about the great revelation of this study. It does not look directly at higher productivity with the use of AI for work tasks. Nor does it necessarily conclude that only WFH remote employees can see these gains. 

What it found is that people with high autonomy are the ones who see  the biggest productivity gains from the use of AI in general. WFH employees have the highest autonomy, so they’re seeing real improvements in increased leisure time. 

Just as the benefits of “flex work” are not about flexibility in location but in the use of time, flexibility in the use of AI drives productivity. 

I’ve been beating the flex work drum for years, and now during the AI revolution I’d like to add autonomy to that mix. Whether employees are working in offices full or part-time, from home full or part-time or as digital nomads full or part-time, in 2026 it appears that the highest productivity and employee satisfaction gains come from maximizing flex work and AI autonomy. 

AI disclosure: I don’t use AI for writing. The words you see here are mine. I do use a variety of AI tools via Kagi Assistant (disclosure: my son works at Kagi) — backed up by both Kagi Search, Google Search, as well as phone calls to research and fact-check. I use a word processing application called Lex, which has AI tools, and after writing use Lex’s grammar checking tools to find typos and errors and suggest word changes. Here’s why I disclose my AI use and encourage you to do the same.