When a technology (e.g., AI coding assistants) makes people meaningfully more productive, the gain is rarely banked as personal time, slack, or creative space — instead, expectations quietly rise to match the new capacity ('I can build twice as much, I should push myself to build three times as much'). The default response to increased throughput is more throughput, not more room to think or rest, which erodes the 'simmer' time and human, joyful side of work described in AI Removes 'Simmer' Time for Thinking. Worth checking against team and org policy whenever new tooling promises time savings: someone has to deliberately choose to keep the slack, or it disappears into a new baseline of expected output.
Source: Emily Tate (VP Product), conference-recap interview 'A deep dive into the state of product in 2026' (2026-08).