Quick Take: AI has changed my life and career in genuinely positive ways. But there’s a cost nobody’s talking about, and I think it’s time someone did. The mental load, the physical toll, the quiet pressure to never stop learning, never stop building, never step away. This is an honest conversation about what AI adoption is actually costing the people who are going all-in.
Earlier this week, I was on a call with a small group of marketing leaders I meet with regularly. We get together every couple of weeks to share what we’re working on, pressure-test ideas, and nerd out on the tools and strategies we’re experimenting with. It’s one of my favorite calls because everyone in the room is doing genuinely sharp work in AI and marketing.
Someone started demoing a new tool they’d been using, and it was remarkable. It had the ability to take someone from an idea to a fully executed digital product in a matter of hours, the kind of output that would’ve taken a team weeks to build even a year ago.
I expected to feel energized. Instead, I sat there watching the demo, surrounded by smart people who were excited, and I felt quietly overwhelmed, almost frozen. Because if I’m being honest, my first thought was just “great, one more tool I need to figure out.”
The Speed Is Real. So Is the Weight of It.
I’ve spent the last two years learning, obsessing, studying, practicing, breaking things, and rebuilding them. I genuinely cannot count how many times I’ve had to completely redo something I created because the technology evolved before I finished building it. You end up in this constant loop of creative inspiration followed by iteration fatigue followed by exhaustion from trying to stay fluent in something that changes every single week.
And when you’re a solopreneur, that loop gets really loud. Because you are the strategist, the operator, the creator, the admin, and the builder. There’s no team to absorb the load, and there’s no one else tracking what changed overnight in the tools you rely on. You carry all of it.
So you find yourself energized and exhausted in the same breath. You can see the future clearly and you’re simultaneously asking yourself: Where are we even headed? Is this sustainable? What does my business actually look like six months from now? Because the honest answer is you can’t predict it anymore.
Everyone’s Drinking the Kool-Aid. I Get It. I Did Too.
Let me be clear about something. AI has genuinely changed my life and the trajectory of my career in positive ways. I teach AI strategy, I believe in it deeply, and I’ve built my entire business around helping people use it well. This isn’t a hit piece on AI.
But I think there’s a side of this conversation that people are feeling and not fully saying yet. We hear “it creates efficiency” and “it helps you scale” and “it’s your creative partner,” and all of that is true. It’s also not the whole story.
A few weeks ago, a tech founder named Matt Shumer published an article that shook a lot of people. He’d spent six years building an AI startup and investing in the space, and he wrote what he called “the honest version” of what’s happening with AI, the version he’d been holding back because it sounded too extreme. He compared the current moment to February 2020, when most of us heard whispers about a virus spreading overseas but didn’t really believe it would change our lives. And then within three weeks, the entire world looked different. His argument was that we’re in that same “this seems overblown” phase right now, except with something much bigger and much more permanent than a pandemic.
I don’t share his piece to create fear. I share it because reading it helped me name what I’d already been feeling in my body for months: that quiet hum of “something massive is shifting and I can’t keep up with it, and I’m not sure anyone can.”
What Are We Actually Trading?
Here’s the part I don’t hear enough people talking about: the physical cost.
I read a post from a founder who said that in the process of building, learning, and going all-in on AI over the last couple of years, he gained 50 pounds. It stopped me, because it was the first time I’d seen someone say that part out loud. And I could relate to it more than I wanted to admit.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve gained just over 20 pounds. I’m not blaming that entirely on AI, but I am acknowledging the reality of what’s been happening. I’ve been working longer hours and spending significantly more time behind a screen. I’m moving less, eating worse, and saying “just one more thing” before I get up from the desk more times than I can count.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. AI gives us speed, creativity, and scale, but those things come with a trade. For me, part of that trade has been physical. And I’m now in the process of recalibrating how I eat, how I move, and how I structure my days, because I can feel the cost showing up in my body, not just in my brain.
The Pressure to Never Step Away
I think one of the hardest parts of this season is the feeling that you can’t unplug, even when you desperately need to.
I just got back from my first real family vacation, a cruise, which meant naturally limited wi-fi. For the first time in a long time, the boundary was built in. I didn’t have to enforce it. The ocean did it for me.
And at first, it was exactly the reset I was hoping for. I wasn’t checking tools, I wasn’t iterating on a project, I wasn’t telling myself “just one quick thing.” I was with my kids, and I was fully there. It felt like I could breathe again.
And then I caved. We bought the wi-fi package. And before I knew it, I was walking laps on the top deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, using AI to outline an upcoming keynote. Let that image sit for a second, because it’s kind of absurd. I was surrounded by open water with nowhere to be, and I still couldn’t stop building.
I set the boundary, it worked, I felt the relief of it, and I still couldn’t fully stay away. The pull is just that strong right now.
There’s this underlying pressure, almost a false belief, that if you step away you’re going to miss something critical, that the window is closing and you need to keep building, keep learning, keep moving. And that pressure hits differently when you have a family.
I have two small kids, and I want to be present with them. I want to disconnect and actually mean it. But AI is moving so fast, and it’s becoming so embedded in everything I do, that the pressure to keep up follows you everywhere, even to the top deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. These expectations to respond quickly, build quickly, and stay current aren’t inherently bad, but they carry real weight. And I don’t think enough people are being honest about that.
Holding Both Truths
So here’s where I’ve landed, at least for now.
AI is powerful, it’s worth learning, and it has made me better at what I do. I’m grateful for it. And there are real costs that come with it: mental, emotional, physical, and relational. Both of those things can be true at the same time, and learning to hold both of them honestly is where the real work starts.
For me right now, that means recalibrating: setting boundaries that actually stick, moving my body again, and being honest when I’m overwhelmed instead of performing like I’ve got it all figured out.
It also means getting in rooms with real humans. Being part of a few small masterminds where I meet with people regularly, people who inspire me, support me, and partner with me in the work, has been a genuine lifeline. Those rooms keep me balanced and grounded in a way that no AI tool or online community can. If you don’t have that in your life right now, go find it. It matters more than you think.
Because here’s the thing. I don’t have a clean answer for any of this. I’m writing from the middle of it, figuring it out in real time, the same way most of us are.
I Think a Lot of People Are Feeling This
They’re just not saying it out loud yet, so I will.
What is this actually costing us mentally, emotionally, physically, and in our roles as parents and partners and humans who exist outside of a screen? What are we trading for the speed? And how do we make sure the future we’re building with AI is one we actually want to live in?
I think asking those questions is one of the most important things we can do right now. And I think it’s long overdue.
Honest is where the good work starts.
If this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you want more honest conversations about AI, personal branding, and what’s actually working right now, listen to AI After Hours wherever you get your podcasts, or subscribe to the AI After Hours newsletter on LinkedIn.
Katie Shive is a personal branding strategist and creator of the Brand Builder framework and GEO Visibility Flywheel for mortgage professionals. With 8+ years in the mortgage industry and 15 years in marketing, she helps professionals build authentic brands that show up in AI search. Katie is the founder of KS Marketing, host of AI After Hours podcast, and co-host of Redeeming Her podcast. Based in Kalispell, Montana.
Comments +