What you're probably seeing
The air is running but the house isn't cooling the way it should. Maybe the vents are blowing air that feels more lukewarm than cold, or the system is cycling on and off more than usual. If you've gone out to the outdoor unit or peeked at the indoor coil and seen frost or a sheet of ice building up, that's the ice loop starting, and it's a clear sign something upstream isn't right.
This shows up a lot in Nixa summers, especially during the stretch from June through August when the humidity off the Ozarks sits heavy and temperatures hang in the 90s for days at a time. A system that's borderline on refrigerant or airflow can limp along fine in April, then start icing the first truly muggy week of July.
Why the ice forms in the first place
Your AC's indoor coil needs a steady flow of warmer house air moving across it to stay above freezing. When something restricts that airflow, or when refrigerant levels are low, the coil gets too cold. Moisture in the air freezes onto it instead of draining away. Once a little ice forms, it blocks even more airflow, which makes the coil colder still. It snowballs.
Common culprits around here are dirty filters clogged with the fine dust and pollen that blows through in spring, closed or blocked vents in rooms nobody uses, or a return air grille that's been partially covered by furniture. Many homes in Nixa, especially the older ranch-style and split-level houses built in the 70s and 80s, have undersized return ducts to begin with, which makes them more prone to this than newer construction.
More on this from The Ice Loop And Why Running It Harder Makes It Worse.
Why running it harder backfires
The instinct when a house feels warm is to turn the thermostat down further or let the system run nonstop, thinking it'll catch up. With an ice loop already starting, that's close to the worst thing you can do. More runtime just means more cold exposure on a coil that's already too cold, and more time for that ice to thicken.
Eventually the ice can block the coil almost entirely. At that point you get no cooling at all, warm air blowing instead of cold, and in some cases water everywhere once the ice melts and the condensate can't drain fast enough. People who keep pushing the system through this, especially overnight when nobody's watching it, sometimes end up with liquid refrigerant returning to the compressor, which can cause real damage that has nothing to do with the original filter or airflow problem.
What you can check yourself
Start with the filter. Pull it and hold it up to a light. If you can't see light through it, replace it. In Nixa, with the amount of pollen in spring and dust kicked up by lawn work in summer, a one-inch filter often needs changing monthly during peak season, not every three months like the box sometimes suggests.
Walk the house and make sure supply vents aren't blocked by rugs, furniture, or curtains, and that return grilles have clear space in front of them. If you see frost on the lines running to the outdoor unit or ice on the indoor coil, turn the system off completely, not just down. Switch the thermostat fan to "on" so air keeps moving without the compressor running. That helps melt the ice without making it worse, and it usually takes a few hours, sometimes overnight.
When it's no longer a homeowner fix
If the ice comes back once you've cleared it, replaced the filter, and opened up all the vents, the problem is past what a homeowner can reasonably diagnose. Low refrigerant from a slow leak, a failing blower motor, or a duct system that's genuinely too small for the house all look the same from the outside: ice on the coil, weak airflow, a house that won't cool down.
Refrigerant work also isn't a DIY matter. It requires tools and certification to handle safely and legally. If you've done the basic checks and the system still ices up within a day of running, it's time to get someone out to look at the refrigerant charge and the coil itself before the compressor takes the kind of damage that turns a simple repair into a full system replacement.