Will the Four-Day Workweek Ever Arrive?

This week in our newsletter:

• Millennials Keep Leaving Their Jobs
• ‘Vibe-coding’ is Going Viral, Thanks to Claude.
• Check Your Work: You May Be Relying on AI Hallucinations
• Job Applicants are Suing AI Hiring Tools
• Law School Applications are Booming, But the Stakes are Higher Too

Read the full newsletter for our analysis on these stories — shared exclusively in our newsletter.

The start of a new year is a time when companies are busy setting their strategies and goals for the year. One topic that may be coming up in discussion is the four-day workweek.

The four-day workweek has been something companies around the world have flirted with for years. In more recent times, it’s turned into one of the many pandemic-era ideas that have since been shelved, right next to the sourdough starter and Zoom happy hour calls.

But with rapid AI and automation advances, 2026 may just mark a turning point.

A spate of top business leaders have been quoted predicting that AI will eventually shrink the workweek — it’s just a question of how much.

Jaimie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has suggested that technology will eventually push people to work three and a half days a week. Bill Gates floated the possibility of working two or three days a week. Elon Musk has gone a step further, predicting that work may become “optional” in the future.

These are all bold predictions that make for great headlines. After all, who doesn’t like the idea of longer weekends?

In addition to having more leisure time, there’s also the view some experts have taken that a four-day workweek could offer a better alternative to businesses than laying off workers whose jobs are being automated by AI.

A shorter workweek would mean a more gradual reduction in hours per job, which would prevent employment from immediately plummeting. Work could instead be spread among more people, ensuring that employment levels hold as society transitions into a new working economy.

But is there actually less work to do? Probably not.

As we discussed in recent weeks, AI’s societal impact isn’t as straightforward as simply eliminating work. Rather, it’s allowed for more work to be done in less time, encouraging business leaders to take on more ideas and drive greater productivity. Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, explains it as the Jevons paradox in knowledge work, where the total amount of work actually expands with AI, making projects more economically viable.

That’s a point that Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has also been careful to make. Sure, he agrees that we will “probably” transition to a four-day work week. But at the same time, he’s also said that he’s “afraid to admit that we are going to be busier in the future than now.”

So, less time at work is probably not going to mean there is actually less work to do. It just means that we’ll be expected to do more work faster and meet higher KPIs.

Will businesses want to cut hours in the AI age?

You’re not alone if you think that the productivity paradox of AI multiplying work directly contradicts the premise that AI will allow businesses to reduce work hours.

Mark Dixon, CEO and founder of International Workplace Group (IWG), takes a much more cynical view (although, given that IWG is the world’s largest flexible office provider, it’s easy to see why). He argues that economic realities force businesses to focus on productivity rather than reducing hours.

The most common model for the four-day work week is the 100:80:100 principle, which allocates 100% of the pay for 80% of the hours worked while maintaining 100% of the output. In this model, work is compressed rather than reduced.

But Dixon suggests that companies can’t afford to pay the same wages for fewer hours, especially when operating costs are rising. These costs can’t be passed on to customers who are also experiencing a growing cost-of-living crisis, so businesses are more likely to want to get more from their workers instead. All that freed-up time from automation will likely be filled with new tasks, not leisure.

There are some stats that back up Dixon’s argument. For one, office occupancy rates have been picking up. According to CBRE’s 2026 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insight reports, the global average building utilization rate has increased to 53% — the highest since March 2020. Peak utilization is at 80%, suggesting that employers are putting the emphasis on bringing workers together for team events.

Businesses are also putting more pressure on employees to return to work. A 2025 survey by CBRE found that 85% of organizations surveyed had communicated an office attendance policy to their workers. Stricter enforcement saw 72% of organizations meeting their attendance goals, versus 61% in 2024.

The strategic focus on optimizing existing office spaces rather than reducing them suggests that businesses are more concerned with increasing productivity than reducing workloads.

Do four-day work weeks (pardon the pun) work in practice?

If the volume of work isn’t shrinking, the bigger question we need to ask is whether there is a business case for structuring work differently.

The short answer is yes.

Several companies that have trialed shorter work weeks have reported an increase in productivity. Most impressively, Microsoft Japan saw a 40% boost in productivity from its 2019 pilot, which included having Fridays off and encouraging shorter meetings.

More recently, in a large, six-month trial spanning nearly 2,900 employees across 141 companies in six countries, researchers found that a four-day workweek without losing pay reduced burnout and improved job satisfaction, mental health, and physical health. Workers also self-reported improvements in their ability to work, and a reduction in sleep problems and fatigue.

Employees at companies that adopted a four-day workweek experienced improved well-being, regardless of how many working hours the company reduced. That may come as a surprise if you thought that employees would be more stressed by higher daily job demands. It suggests that companies have a lot to gain from reducing hours, even if it’s not by a full working day.

One thing is for certain: workers aren’t happy.

This all comes at a time when employee dissatisfaction is growing across workplaces.

You may have heard of quiet quitting, which peaked during the pandemic, when workers experienced burnout and workplace turnover was high.

Now, the latest trend is quiet cracking — where employees stay at their jobs while being quietly dissatisfied and disengaged at work. It’s a growing phenomenon driven by the perfect blend of an uncertain economy, a tight job market, and career uncertainty in the AI age. According to a survey by TalentLMS, 54% of US workers experience some level of quiet cracking. 20% say it’s a frequent or constant state they’re in.

Some companies may very well choose to deprioritize their workers’ well-being in favor of increasing output. But others might already be learning that they need to look for ways to reinvigorate their people. After all, no amount of automation can fix a workplace that’s quietly checking out.