Hi Reader,
Last week I spoke at two in-person events.
Both events were tied to AI-ready skills, and how our human advantage is the thing we need to protect.
Because thinking, judging, relating to each other, connecting... are exactly the things that go offline first when everything is urgent, pressures are piling up, and uncertainty is the baseline.
Which is how so many people tell me they're operating.
And yet, there's confusion too, because wasn't AI supposed to take out the mundane work? Making us more efficient, and freeing us to be more creative?
That "we've been here before" feeling got me thinking about Amazon Prime. I was an early member. Pre-smartphone, young, ambitious, and fully committed to squeezing every drop of productivity out of my week.
Two-day shipping felt like a cheat code. Fewer weekend errands. Ordering the big bulky things to be delivered to my doorstep. Convenience.
The promise of efficiency would surely mean more downtime, right?
Then came the app. Then Alexa. Then voice-ordering while cooking or simply walking by and remembering the thing I forgot to order.
AI is doing the same thing to knowledge work.
Faster drafts, faster analysis, faster everything. And somehow there’s more to review, more to decide, and more to keep up with.
But underneath these new types of strain rarely shows up on a dashboard: the cognitive load of keeping up. Coordination demands. Uncertainty. Change fatigue. Less room to step back and think.
The pace is unlikely to slow anytime soon. So we need little tools to interrupt the stress cycle when things start to feel unmanageable.
Here are three ways to slow the swirl, especially the heaviness piling up around your AI use:
1. Pause. Compared to you at your best, what is your capacity to focus, remember, and stay calm right now? If the answer is “not great,” go to number 2.
2. Notice. How am I feeling? Where is the tension living in my body, and can I pinpoint the source of my stress this week?
3. Look around. What in my environment is draining my capacity that I may have stopped noticing?
You are carrying a lot, and things are changing every day. It may feel impossible, but try to take a few minutes later today and ask yourself one or two of the questions above.
In this with you,
Alison
PS - Hit reply and tell me which one of the three tips landed. Keep reading for more resources as you navigate year-end.
AI-Related Strain
Here are six patterns I keep seeing on teams. I’d bet you’re seeing them too:
- Nobody’s sure what AI is for in their role. This was the #2 risk factor for burnout and lower capacity in our unBurnt + CHB Bentley study.
- Everyone’s guessing at expectations. Only 32% of employees understand what it takes to succeed, per Seramount’s AI Value Breakdown report. And just 26% of AI users told the 2026 Microsoft Work Trend Index that their leadership is clearly and consistently aligned on AI.
- The output looks polished. The substance is missing. In an HBR survey of 1,150 US employees, 40% received AI-generated work in the past month that looked great but couldn’t move the task forward.
- Agents are running without a manager.BCG found half of respondents say their companies lack clear governance for teams of people and AI.
- No one knows who to tell when it breaks.IBM’s Institute for Business Value reports a third of executives say escalation paths are unclear, and 43% of employees don’t feel comfortable raising concerns.
- The people function is missing from the room.IBM’s CHRO study found that 60% of employees worry AI is eroding their skills, yet 46% of organizations leave the CHRO out of AI strategy. The decisions reshaping how people work are being made without the people who understand the cost.
