‘Too many employees are serving as the human middleware’: Workers are wasting a full work day each week switching between disparate AI tools and internal systems

British workers are wasting nearly a full work day each week switching between disconnected AI tools and systems.

While more than half of employees say AI helps them complete individual tasks more efficiently, any time saved is often wiped out by the time spent switching between systems, checking outputs, and manually moving information across tools.

In fact, research from enterprise AI platform Workday shows one-in-four UK workers spends seven or more hours a week copying information between applications, reconciling conflicting data, and manually feeding context into AI tools.

According to Workday, a key issue here is that businesses are prioritizing new features without ensuring that the technology can work together. While an isolated application might speed up one specific task, managing the disconnect slows down the rest of the day for workers.

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"Too many employees are serving as the human middleware between disconnected AI systems," said Daniel Pell, vice president and country manager, UKI at Workday.

"The companies seeing the most value from AI are building it directly into the systems where their people, data and work come together."

Nearly eight-in-ten UK workers are held up by annoying administrative tasks such as chasing down data just to feed it into an AI prompt. And while they're working harder to manage new tools, their output doesn't reflect this.

Three-quarters of workers said decisions are delayed when information is missing or unclear, while a similar number of teams often disagree over whose numbers are right.

"Dealing with system glitches, chasing approval and constantly fixing or redoing work because of inconsistent data – it keeps me busy, but doesn’t feel like real progress," one IT director told the researchers.

As a result, more than 60% of UK workers find themselves stuck in "busy but unproductive" days often or very often - many more than the global figure of 43%.

Confusion fuels burnout

According to Workday, this is causing serious issues with burnout. More than three-quarters (77%) of respondents reported higher levels of stress in their role due to navigating disparate AI tools and systems.

"My day often feels busy but not genuinely productive when I’m pulled into constant coordination tasks and system-related issues that interrupt focused, high-value work," said one respondent.

On a more positive note, 81% of UK employees said that AI is improving how their day-to-day work feels, and 45% said it has accelerated their work in a productive way.

However, only 23% of UK organizations have AI deeply embedded in their core systems, leaving it on the periphery. Among those organizations that do, 57% of employees report that AI has reduced task time by 25% or more.

Where AI isn't used in core systems at all, that figure is 39%, Workday found.

"Employees are already showing organizations how they want AI to work: integrated directly into workflows, proactively surfacing insights and handling coordination in the background," the researchers said.

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