Ryan FowlerUK employees are losing significant amounts of productivity due to disconnected AI systems and fragmented workplace technology, according to new research published by Workday.
The report, titled The Copy/Paste Economy: Why Task-Oriented AI Is Failing the Enterprise, found that one in four UK workers spend seven hours or more each week manually copying information between applications, reconciling conflicting data and feeding context into AI tools.
While many employees said AI is helping them complete individual tasks more quickly, Workday said those efficiencies are often offset by the time spent switching between systems, checking outputs and managing disconnected workflows.
The research suggests the issue is contributing to rising workplace frustration and burnout, despite continued optimism around AI adoption. More than half of UK workers said AI is already reducing task completion times, but these gains are not translating into overall time savings across the working day.
Workday said this is creating a “faster but not better” reality for employees, with businesses prioritising AI adoption without ensuring systems work effectively together.
Daniel Pell, vice president and country manager, UKI, at Workday, said: “Too many employees are serving as the human middleware between disconnected AI systems.
“The companies seeing the most value from AI are building it directly into the systems where their people, data and work come together.”
The research found 78% of UK workers are hindered by administrative tasks linked to disconnected systems, while more than 60% said they frequently experience “busy but unproductive” working days, significantly higher than the 43% recorded globally.
The report also highlighted growing wellbeing concerns, with 77% of UK workers reporting stress caused by navigating disconnected AI tools and systems.
Workday said organisations seeing the strongest results are focusing on integrated AI platforms embedded directly into core business systems, reducing the need for employees to manually transfer information between separate applications.
The company said removing low-value administrative work could allow employees to reinvest time into higher-value tasks and improve overall productivity outcomes.
