Remember the Pentagon Pizza theory? There's a new version for the AI era

• A corporate food service has seen late-night and weekend orders surge, outpacing new user growth.
• The findings suggest these workers are logging more hours, even as some employers say AI boosts efficiency.
• They also echo a popular theory linking spikes in pizza deliveries to government buildings ahead of geopolitical events.

AI is making white-collar work more efficient, proponents of the technology say. Employees' eating habits may tell another story.

When companies such as Atlassian, Block, and Snap, announced mass layoffs earlier this year, they cited one common factor: AI. The technology, they said, has led them to adjust the makeup of their workforces.

Yet data from Sharebite, a corporate meal benefits and delivery platform founded in 2015, suggests AI may be driving some workers to log longer hours — not fewer. The company said the number of client orders placed on Saturdays more than doubled in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2025. Orders placed after 6 pm on weekdays and weekends rose 57% over that time, while overall user growth increased 36%.

The imbalance suggests a disproportionate rise in activity outside traditional work hours — a modern echo of the Pentagon Pizza Theory, the idea that spikes in late-night food orders signal government staff working overtime ahead of major events.

The findings come as many companies have ramped up pressure on workers to adopt AI, including by tying usage to performance reviews that influence raises and promotions.

Sharebite CEO Dilip Rao, a former Wall Street investment banker, told Business Insider he believes there's a connection between the spike in off-hours orders among his clients — several hundred companies of varying sizes mainly in tech and finance — and the AI boom.

"Based on data across our enterprise customer base over the past 12 to 18 months, we're not seeing people work less," he said. "If anything, activity is extending later into the day and into weekends."

Rao's thesis aligns with a growing body of research showing that AI is stretching professionals' workloads. For example, a study published in the Harvard Business Review in February found that employees who use AI take on a broader range of tasks and put in longer hours than those who don't.

Another report released this year by UC Berkeley researchers reached a similar conclusion. Drawing on an eight-month study of workers at a small US tech company, the researchers observed that employees multitasked more, took on broader responsibilities, and worked longer hours — often without being asked.

Likewise, a 2025 report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research linked greater AI exposure to longer work hours and reduced leisure time. The authors said this was primarily because AI complements human labor rather than replacing it.

More work, more food

With the Pentagon Pizza Theory, often credited to a pizza shop owner in the early '90s, federal employees who suddenly order a ton of pies must be working overtime to prep for something important, or so the thinking goes.

Sharebite's food-delivery data may offer similar insights into the impact of AI on workers, Rao said, drawing a link between the surge in evening orders and companies' adoption of the technology.

"This looks much more like a shift in how work gets done than a reduction in work itself," said Rao, adding that the data underscores how essential human talent remains as companies adopt AI.

Workers may be putting in longer hours for reasons other than, or in addition to, AI. In recent years, employers have been prioritizing measurable results over loyalty and raising performance expectations. Those changes, along with cuts to perks and, in some cases, core benefits, reflect a labor market in which workers have less leverage to push back on overtime demands than in the past.

There are a few reasons AI may be pushing workers to expand their workdays. One is that the technology can hallucinate and introduce errors into its output. After using it to write copy, code, or create an image, users need to review the results to ensure accuracy — and correcting mistakes takes additional time.

AI may also be causing workers to spend more time on the job because they're still learning how to integrate it into their workflows, said Neil Thompson, an innovation scholar at MIT's computer science and AI lab.

"Usually there's a transition period where you have to modify the processes the organization has," he said. "Initially, you become less efficient."