Controlling Time or Controlled by Time? AI-Mediated Workflows as an Occasion for Structuring

How does artificial intelligence (AI) re-shape the temporal experience of work? We argue that AI does not determine work tempo on its own. Its temporal force is configured by leaders and enacted by workers. Building on structuration theory, we develop a process model in which leaders configure AI systems along the dimensions of temporal authority and interaction frequency, generating AI-driven time pressure that workers navigate through temporal job crafting. Whether this synchronization becomes subjugating or agentic depends on leaders’ temporal leadership, and the resulting individual and collective outcomes feed back to prompt continual re-configuration, with no optimal end. Our work contributes a non-deterministic account of AI and time, re-positions temporal leadership as socio-technical governance, and extends entrainment theory by linking micro-level adaptation to macro-level collaborative dynamics.