Definition
Mental fatigue caused by using or supervising AI beyond one's own cognitive capacity. The named driver is organisational rather than individual: firms that reward token consumption as a proxy for performance push people past their limits.
What is at stake
The driver is a management choice. That makes it fixable, and it makes the metric the problem rather than the person.
Where the word came from
See power user fatigue for the burnout lineage.
How episcope came to it
BCG's brain fry article, 5 March 2026. Four of the six authors sit at BCG or the BCG Henderson Institute, and the method sits behind the paywall.
What to watch for
The term belongs to BCG. It is the published anchor for what episcope frames as power user fatigue, so it is the one that carries a citation.
Papers behind it
Bedard, J., Kropp, M., Hsu, M., Karaman, O. T., Hawes, J., & Rosen Kellerman, G. (5 March 2026). When Using AI Leads to ‘Brain Fry’. Harvard Business Review.