The AI paradox for IT specialists: time gets saved, workloads keep growing

A survey of IT specialists captured a paradox familiar to many industries: artificial intelligence noticeably speeds up individual tasks — code, documentation, bug hunting — yet total workload grows instead of shrinking. The freed time is instantly consumed by new projects, raised expectations, and the very work of verifying what the AI produced.

Economists call it the rebound effect: when a resource gets cheaper, people spend more of it. The same happens with working hours — management sees tasks closing faster and simply assigns more of them, without redesigning the processes.

For a business owner in Kazakhstan the practical conclusion is this: an AI rollout must come with a decision about where exactly the freed hours go — into new products, into quality, into shrinking the task backlog. Otherwise the gain dissolves into the general flow, and the team gets burnout instead of relief. A useful monthly check: which tasks has AI taken over completely, and where has it merely added a layer of review on top of the old work.