Artificial Intelligence in Hybrid Work: Between the Architects of Efficiency and the Shadows of Intelligence

This chapter explores the complex interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and employee well-being within hybrid work environments. Ojo and Blaha analyse AI’s evolution from early automation to contemporary generative systems, framing it as both a driver of organisational efficiency and a source of new human challenges. The chapter investigates how AI reshapes work through automation, data analytics, and decision support, influencing cognitive load, expertise, and the broader experience of work.

Using perspectives from crystallised and fluid intelligence and cognitive load theory, the authors show that while AI can alleviate routine workloads and enhance creativity, it may also heighten stress, job insecurity, and emotional fatigue. They examine four dimensions of well-being – physical, emotional, social, and financial – revealing how AI affects each differently. Physically, it reduces repetitive strain but fosters overconnection; emotionally, it empowers yet provokes anxiety; socially, it enables inclusion but risks isolation; financially, it creates new roles while displacing others.

The authors argue that well-being in AI-augmented hybrid work depends on intentional human-centred design, transparent governance, and ongoing reskilling. By framing hybrid work as a collaborative experiment between humans and intelligent systems, the chapter envisions a future where technology enhances, rather than diminishes, human potential. The ultimate question it raises is ethical: can productivity gains from AI coexist with dignity, fairness, and well-being? The future, they conclude, will depend not on AI’s intelligence but on humanity’s choices in shaping it.