Artificial intelligence is now part of daily work for many professionals. From writing code to drafting emails, AI tools promise to make life faster and easier. But a viral post by a Mumbai entrepreneur shows that the reality may be more complicated.
Mustafa Yusuf, founder of Msquare Labs, recently shared his experience on X about how AI has changed his workflow. His post quickly caught attention online because it summed up a problem many professionals say they face.
“What used to take me 30 minutes now takes me two hours,” he wrote.
“What used to take me two hours now takes me 30 minutes with AI,” the Mumbai-based founder added.
Though Yusuf did not mention the exact tasks he was talking about, his comment pointed to a strange productivity trade-off that many workers are starting to notice as AI tools are incresingly being used at workplaces on a daily basis.
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Interacting with AI tools can sometimes slow down work instead of speeding it up. Tasks that once took half an hour can now stretch much longer because users spend time guiding the AI, correcting it, or refining prompts.
For many professionals, this means repeatedly explaining the task to the AI before getting the desired output.
At the same time, AI can dramatically speed up other tasks.
This contrast is what many users are now calling the AI productivity paradox. The technology can remove hours of routine work, but it can also create new kinds of delays.
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Many users on X said they could relate to Yusuf’s experience.
One user wrote that AI performs best when the task is clear. “AI is great at the 30-minute tasks because they’re well-defined. The two-hour tasks were slow because they were ambiguous, and now you’re just arguing with the model instead of thinking.”
Another user shared a similar frustration. “The 30-minute tasks that now take two hours are always the ones where you spend 90 minutes arguing with the AI before realizing you should’ve just done it yourself.”
A third user pointed out that AI has changed the nature of work rather than removing effort completely. “The stuff AI is fast at used to be the boring parts. Now I spend most of my time on context setup and prompt architecture instead of actually writing code still net positive.”
The discussion shows that while AI is transforming workplaces quickly, figuring out how to use it efficiently is still a work in progress.
