Tech leaders at companies investing hundreds of billions of dollars a year in AI have said the technology will reduce work hours, but staff report working up to 90 hours a week. An engineering director at Google predicted four years ago that AI would deliver a four-day work week by 2025. OpenAI formally urged companies to test a four-day work week with no pay change, claiming AI would speed up human labour. However, a former OpenAI technical employee who left last year told the BBC the firm never trialled the four-day work week it suggested. The person described a gruelling culture with frequent "crisis meetings", weekend work, and "super cut-throat" performance reviews. They said they would put in at least 70 hours a week, more than in previous tech jobs, and now work closer to 50-60 hours a week "outside of sprints". Anthropic has said its tool Claude can work on its own for seven hours without a break. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg said AI starts to dramatically change work, and Meta has laid off 1 in 10 employees. Anthropic's chief executive Dario Amodei warned AI could mean broader job losses. Workers inside these companies say they clock in far more than the typical five-day, 40-hour work week.