AI tools are overdelivering: results from our large-scale AI productivity survey
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There’s no shortage of debate about AI’s impact on work. Is it delivering real productivity gains? Where’s the ROI? Hot takes abound, but data have been scarce.
We took it upon ourselves to find out what’s actually happening on the ground by running one of the largest independent, in-depth surveys on how AI is affecting productivity for tech workers (1,750 respondents). We surveyed product managers, engineers, designers, founders, and others about how they’re using AI at work.
tl;dr: AI is overdelivering.
55% of respondents say AI has exceeded their expectations, and almost 70% say it’s improved the quality of their work.
More than half of respondents said AI is saving them at least half a day per week on their most important tasks. We’ve never seen a tool deliver a productivity boost like this before.
Founders are getting the most out of AI. Half (49%) report that AI saves them over 6 hours per week, dramatically higher than for any other role. Close to half (45%) also feel that the quality of their work is “much better” thanks to AI.
Designers are seeing the fewest benefits. Only 45% report a positive ROI (compared with 78% of founders), and 31% report that AI has fallen below expectations, triple the rate among founders.
Engineers have accepted AI as a coding partner and now want it to handle the more boring (but necessary) work of building products: documentation, code review, and writing tests.
n8n is currently dominating the agent landscape, though actual adoption of agentic platforms in 2025 has been slow.
A whopping 92.4% of respondents report at least one significant
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