One angle that doesn't come up enough in this discussion: even when productivity gains don't materialise, engineers are still feeling the pressure as if they have. In our burnout survey data, AI pressure to do more has emerged as a top 4 burnout driver in 2026 — a finding that didn't exist two years ago.
So the productivity paradox has a human cost attached to it. CEOs see no productivity gains, but engineers are burning out from the expectation that they should be more productive because of AI. The pressure exists regardless of whether the output does.
We wrote this up here if anyone's interested: rechargedaily.co/blog/ai-productivity-burnout-paradox
Also running an anonymous survey on this — 3 mins, results public:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdu-1Sa6oPvhDtFtBuK...