Survey suggests worker productivity gains are being hampered by the number of tools provided, but artificial intelligence (AI) offers hope.

A survey of 2,187 workers in the U.S. and United Kingdom (UK) finds 90% report feeling overwhelmed by the number of software tools they use, with 59% believing it is harder than ever to be productive.

Conducted by Quickbase, a provider of a project management platform, the survey also finds 80% of respondents work for organizations that in the last year have increased investment in productivity, work management and collaboration tools

Half of the workers surveyed reported experiencing project delays, miscommunication, duplication of work, and budget overages in the last 12 months. A total of 59% spend more than 11 hours per week chasing down critical project information from different people and systems.

More troubling still, nearly a third (32%) report they are only able to spend 11-20 hours per week on meaningful work that advances key projects.

The survey makes it clear that workers are struggling with the tools they are being provided, said Quickbase CEO Ed Jennings. “They are being overwhelmed by sprawl,” he says.

On the plus side, 85% said they trust artificial intelligence (AI) to improve how work gets done, with more than half (52%) reporting they use AI tools daily. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (72%) anticipate their organization will increase budgets for AI tools in 2025

However, 89% also said they have some level of concern about data security, compliance or privacy risks.

Many organizations are now also struggling with the cost of using those AI tools as adoption increases, noted Jennings.

It’s not clear just how much of an impact AI will have on productivity. There is a clear opportunity to reduce or outright eliminate manual tasks but the degree to which that increased level of automation might improve profitability remains to be seen. For example, while the marketing department may be able to generate more collateral it doesn’t automatically follow that customers will be prepared to digest that content in a way that leads to increased sales.

In fact, organizations, while continuing to experiment with AI, would be well advised to identify strategic use cases for AI that will positively impact their bottom line, said Jennings.

One way or another, it’s only a matter of time before AI is pervasively embedded into workflows. The issue now is the pace at which that adoption will occur. Business leaders are understandably anxious to realize the potential productivity benefit enabled by AI, but at least as of yet those gains have been relatively modest. Too often, business leaders are expecting employees to discover how to embed AI into workflows on their own versus providing the additional level of training that might be required, noted Jennings.

Regardless of the level of adoption of AI, making technology available to employees is only half the battle. Business and IT leaders need to ensure there is a viable plan to re-engineer workflows that employees will actually embrace. After all, without employee support even AI can easily wind up being yet another innovation that doesn’t live up to its potential promise.