AI Agents Work 24/7 While Humans Sleep, Redefining the Workday

The 24/7 workforce has arrived

One hundred years after Henry Ford introduced the eight-hour workday in 1926, the structure of work is undergoing its most fundamental transformation yet. AI agents are now performing tasks continuously after human employees leave for the day, creating organizations that never stop working.

Sharon Steiner, chief human resources officer at Fiverr, describes the shift in stark terms: "The AI does not rest for a moment, and with developers, the human has become the weak link because they need to eat and sleep and have time off, but the agent continues to work."

The change extends beyond flexible schedules and hybrid work. Companies are now managing a mix of permanent employees, freelancers, and AI systems that operate independently across time zones and outside traditional business hours. Steiner has started calling herself Chief Resource Officer rather than Chief Human Resources Officer to reflect this new reality.

Why it matters

This shift forces companies to rethink fundamental questions about workforce planning, productivity measurement, and organizational structure. When work can continue around the clock without human intervention, traditional metrics like hours worked and physical presence become less relevant than output and task completion. The legal and regulatory frameworks built around human working time are struggling to keep pace with technology that operates continuously.

Measuring productivity, not hours

The metric that matters most is changing. "What is important today is less the experience or title of the employee, but more the productivity," Steiner said. "I need an employee to reach a certain productivity, I care less how it happens. If an employee decides to recruit freelancers, to use agents to achieve the goal, I have no problem with that."

Research supports the productivity case. A 2025 OECD review found that generative AI improved workplace productivity by 5% to more than 25% across customer service, software development, and consulting roles. The largest gains—up to 34%—came among less experienced workers.

Building the hybrid organization

Fiverr has developed an internal tool called the Hiring Intelligence Platform (HIP) to help managers determine the optimal mix of permanent employees, freelancers, and AI tools for specific projects. The system breaks down tasks and recommends resource combinations while providing cost frameworks.

"You feed the system what you're looking for and it builds the right mix of freelancers, full-time employees, and artificial intelligence tools, and it also tells you how much it will cost and how you can save," Steiner explained.

The approach treats workforce planning as resource allocation, deciding which tasks require permanent staff, which can be outsourced, and which can be automated.

Legal frameworks lag behind

Hadas Raccah-Dvir, head of the labor law department at Shibolet, notes that employment contracts and labor regulations remain built around human working time even as companies measure output and deploy always-on software. The EU's AI Act, enacted in August 2026, classifies AI systems used for recruiting, promotion, task distribution, and performance evaluation as high-risk due to their potential impact on careers and employee rights.

"The legal questions of the new labor market are no longer limited to how many hours a person works, but also who, or what, makes decisions about them," Raccah-Dvir said.

Steiner expects the next generation of workers—those who grow up with AI as a native tool—to accelerate these changes when they enter the workforce. "The generation of AI natives who will enter the market in two years will completely affect work," she said.

These details were first reported by Calcalist.