What if our biggest workplace problem isn’t the volume of work—but the way our day is designed? In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Alexia Cambon, Head of Research for Copilot and the Future of Work at Microsoft, to explore groundbreaking new data from Microsoft 365.

Based on trillions of productivity signals—from emails and meetings to chats and app usage—Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index reveals a sobering truth: today’s workday is infinite. We’re logging in before sunrise, chatting after dinner, and scrambling in a culture of last-minute meetings and constant interruptions.

Together, Nirit and Alexia unpack what this data really says about how work gets done, why focus time has become a mirage, and what needs to change—before we try to fix it all with AI.

 Want to dive deeper into this topic? Read Nirit’s Forbes article, “⁠Flexibility Was The Promise. The Infinite Workday Is The Reality.“, to explore these ideas further. 

https://youtu.be/50OiZkfFV6k

Guest Information:

Alexia Cambon, Head of Research for Copilot and Future of Work at Microsoft

Alexia leads research for the Future of Work & M365 team as a Senior Director at Microsoft, working to identify emerging research opportunities and delving into customers’ most pressing workforce challenges. She co-leads Microsoft’s cross-company research initiative examining AI’s impact on productivity and performance, and is a seasoned presenter and speaker with a passion for storytelling and creative thinking. Alexia's areas of focus include AI, hybrid work design, and organizational culture. Previously, she spent 10 years at Gartner as a leader of their cross-functional Future of Work Reinvented Initiative. She has written for HBR and The Guardian, and has been featured in NPR, Forbes and The Times (UK).

Link to report: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/breaking-down-infinite-workday

Chapters:

00:00 – Why Are We Still Working After Hours? Microsoft’s Data Explained
01:22 – What Does a Head of Future of Work at Microsoft Do?
02:30 – Why the Workday Has Become Infinite
04:35 – How Last-Minute Culture Is Reshaping Our Workday
06:18 – Is Flexibility Creating an Infinite Workday?
07:28 – How Communication Overload Disrupts Focus
08:35 – Why Focus Time Is Disappearing in Modern Workdays
10:28 – How Meeting Overload Is Consuming Peak Brain Hours
12:14 – Are Ad Hoc Meetings Helpful or Hurting Productivity?
15:25 – How Hybrid Work Exposed Our Communication Gaps
16:45 – What Is the Triple Peak Day and Why Does It Matter?
19:07 – Will AI Make Work Better or Just Faster?
20:36 – How Frontier Firms Use AI to Redesign the Workday
22:01 – What Personal Boundaries Help Us Reclaim Our Day?
24:04 – How AI Is Changing Meetings and Focus Time
27:28 – New Ways AI Can Help Us Consume and Create Work Content
29:18 – What Mindset Do We Need to Work with AI Effectively?
31:02 – The New Social Contract: Why People Choose to Work