The Hidden Cost of Using AI at Work: It Might Be Making You Boring
As AI becomes an indispensable tool, newer generations entering the workforce depend on it in deeper, more fundamental ways.
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AI has long been scrutinized for its impact on jobs. Now, researchers and academics are warning of a different risk: the technology may be making our thinking more uniform, discouraging creativity, and weakening critical judgment.
In 2025, Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz warned that frequent reliance on AI could make people “boring”—”not just collectively, but individually.”
Ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to list the top 10 literary works of the past century, and the answers are often strikingly similar. As AI systems draw from overlapping data and patterns, they can steer users toward increasingly homogeneous ideas and recommendations.
The concern comes as AI adoption accelerates in the workplace. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 43% of U.S. workers now use AI at work.
“When employees use it to outsource critical thinking or creative reasoning, there’s a real risk of gradually falling behind and becoming complacent,” Matz said.
The warning is particularly relevant for younger workers. Dorothy Leidner, professor of business and ethics at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, said those early in their careers are more vulnerable because they lack the expertise to use AI as “a thought enhancer rather than a thought generator.”
Experts stress that AI should augment—not replace—human judgment. Americus Reed II, professor of marketing at the Wharton School, said outsourcing critical thinking to AI amounts to “cognitive surrender.”
“It should remove friction, not replace judgment,” Reed said. “The goal is to spend less time processing information and more time creating meaning.”
Rather than abandoning AI, Reed argues that workers should focus on developing qualities machines cannot replicate. “Workers must remember that adopting AI is not the same as outsourcing your identity,” he said. “Judgment, creativity, curiosity, and relationships become even more valuable.”
