We expect AI to be available 24/7, but should it always be?
Imagine an AI executive assistant that intentionally batches notifications, delays non-urgent interruptions, and only escalates high-priority issues outside “working hours.”
Could an AI that knows when not to interrupt you actually make us more productive?
Where would you draw the line between responsiveness and respecting focus?
Yes, but not as a hard “offline” switch. The better model is availability tiers, not human-style working hours.
The case for it: An always-on agent can feel productive while quietly hurting focus. Batching low-priority updates, deferring non-urgent work, and only interrupting for true escalations often beats 24/7 responsiveness.
Where to draw the line:
Practical rule: The agent should be available 24/7, interruptive only when it matters. Working hours become a user preference for when the agent may break focus, not when the agent stops thinking.
That’s especially useful for executive-assistant-style agents: work in the background all the time, but respect focus windows unless urgency crosses a threshold.
So the answer isn’t “should agents have working hours?”, it’s should agents have interruption policies? Usually yes.