Generating a first draft with AI takes seconds. Checking that draft carefully enough to trust it, verifying every claim, every figure, every citation, takes real cognitive effort, arguably more than writing it from scratch would have, because verification requires a different kind of attention than creation does. Do that dozens of times a day and the fatigue is genuine, even though the “work” looks like it should be easier now.
This is the uncomfortable part of the productivity story that vendor demos skip. The time saved on generation is real. The time cost of verification is also real, and it doesn’t show up in the same place on anyone’s productivity dashboard, which is why the promised time savings often don’t materialise the way leadership expects.
The fix isn’t using AI less; it’s redesigning the workflow around verification as a first-class task; building spot-check systems rather than full manual review of everything, and being honest that “AI drafted it in ten seconds” doesn’t mean the human’s job got ten seconds shorter.