74% of Workers Now Work on Sundays, Owl Labs Finds

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. workers (74%) now work on Sunday, and 21% put in a full or near-full day, according to Owl Labs' tenth annual State of Hybrid Work report.

The survey, based on responses from 2,000 full-time knowledge workers in the U.S., points to two forces behind the spread of weekend work: artificial intelligence and meeting overload.

A generational divide

Sunday work is far more common among younger employees. Some 76% of Gen Z workers and 62% of millennials say they often work on Sundays, compared with 34% of baby boomers and 42% of Gen Xers.

The gap suggests the seven-day workweek is becoming normalized as younger cohorts move into the bulk of their careers — and it complicates return-to-office mandates built around a rigid Monday-to-Friday frame.

AI raises the bar

The report says AI adoption may partly explain the trend. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (62%) said AI has increased what they are expected to accomplish in a day. Another 46% say AI sometimes hinders their productivity.

AI use has become near-universal: 82% of employees say they use it, including 90% of Gen Z. Daily use climbed from 27% to 32% year over year. Adoption is higher among managers (92%) than individual contributors (62%).

The payoff is real but mixed. On the positive side, 69% of workers said AI has made them more productive and 66% said it has boosted their confidence. But the same share — 46% — worry AI could make their roles unnecessary.

Meetings push work into the weekend

Meeting fatigue is the other driver. Some 38% of workers said meetings leave them overburdened during the week. They cited overly long meetings (45%), too many meetings overall (41%), and too many back-to-back meetings (34%).

Faced with crowded calendars, many employees are moving focused work to whenever they can find it — including Sundays.

Microshifting gains traction

Workers are also embracing more flexible scheduling in general. Nearly two-thirds (61%) expressed interest in "microshifting," which the report defines as working in "short, non-linear blocks to manage [their] workday around parenting, health, energy levels, or [their] personal productivity."

Full-time office work edges up

The share of workers in the office full-time rose from 63% to 65% in 2025, while hybrid schedules fell from 28% to 25%. Still, flexible work remains broadly popular: 46% of respondents said they would work a hybrid schedule if they could.

That tension — more bodies in offices, more work on weekends — frames the challenge for employers heading into 2026. If AI keeps raising daily output expectations while meetings consume the workweek, the Sunday shift is unlikely to reverse on its own.