News
Nearly Half of Gen Z Workers Are Burned Out on AI Tool Overload
New research from the ClickMeeting platform shows that 46 percent of Gen Z workers feel fatigued by an overload of AI tools at work, with one in three experiencing this for months. Instead of making life easier, AI has become another burden for many young employees.
Contents
Nearly half of Polish Gen Z workers admit that an overload of AI tools at work and in daily life leaves them exhausted, and one in three has been feeling this way constantly for months. That's according to a new survey from the ClickMeeting platform, one of the first to measure the scale of digital burnout driven specifically by artificial intelligence rather than screens in general.
The scale of the problem
Among 18-29 year-olds, 46 percent point to an overload of AI tools and apps as a source of digital fatigue. What's more, 32 percent of this group say the condition has persisted continuously for several months to a year, and 20 percent report a period longer than a year. Another 26 percent notice symptoms of digital burnout on and off.
The main reason cited remains constant notifications and messages demanding a quick response, named by 61 percent of Gen Z respondents and half of all survey participants. An overload of AI tools was cited as a direct cause of fatigue by 24 percent, while 23 percent pointed to the blurring of boundaries between work and private life.
The AI rollout paradox
Companies rolled out AI tools on the assumption that they would lighten employees' workload and reduce professional burnout. The ClickMeeting survey shows that among the youngest workers, the effect can be the opposite: they experience AI not as a convenience but as another obligation and pressure to work faster and more efficiently.
The data comes from a survey commissioned by ClickMeeting and conducted by the Quantify agency in June 2026 using the CAWI method (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) on a representative sample of a thousand adults, with a separate breakdown of results for the 18-29 age group.
The wider context of digital fatigue
The phenomenon is also borne out by personal accounts, such as a piece published around the same time on Spider's Web by a Gen Z writer who describes similar symptoms in herself and her peers. The author notes that digital burnout is starting to function as a separate category alongside the long-known professional burnout, even though the two overlap.
This is the flip side of a wave in which companies gave employees unrestricted access to AI tools, betting on a productivity boost. While earlier reports focused mainly on financial losses from ill-considered use of AI at work, the ClickMeeting survey points to a cost on the wellbeing and mental health of the youngest employees.
What it means for Polish employers
For HR departments and managers, the survey result is a signal that rolling out AI without consulting the team or setting clear limits on its use can backfire on the engagement of the youngest employees. Experts cited alongside the survey recommend involving staff in choosing tools and clearly defining when and how often AI should factor into daily work.
The conclusion matters especially for companies rolling out AI agents en masse, following earlier announcements of giving entire departments, or even entire workforces, access to an AI assistant. The scale of such rollouts means the question of team wellbeing becomes just as important as security or licensing costs.
The survey's authors say they plan to track the indicator on a recurring basis to see whether AI-related digital fatigue grows as Polish companies roll out further agentic tools.
Sources: Spider's Web (spidersweb.pl), Gazeta Prawna (gazetaprawna.pl).
