Your team is using AI. But is it actually working?

There's a striking finding buried in new research from ADP's People at Work 2026 report: almost half of workers globally are using AI in their everyday work multiple times a week, yet daily users are four times more likely to feel less productive than those who use it less frequently.

Read that again. The more some people use it, the worse they feel about it.

In Australia specifically, only 13 per cent of workers expect AI to positively impact their job responsibilities in the next 12 months. That's a significant confidence problem for a tool that's supposed to be making work easier.

So what's going wrong?

It's not the technology itself. The gap is almost always in how it's been introduced. When staff are expected to pick up new tools without clear guidance on how to use them well, the tools add friction instead of removing it. People feel uncertain about whether what they're producing is accurate. Work that used to feel straightforward now feels harder to measure.

ADP's research points to another factor worth understanding: as AI handles routine tasks, employees shift toward more complex, strategic work. That kind of work is less tangible and harder to measure, which can create the perception of reduced productivity even when actual impact is growing. That's a genuine challenge for both staff and the business owners trying to understand whether the investment is paying off.

For business owners, this matters. You may have staff using AI tools across your business right now with no clear picture of whether it's helping or creating quiet frustration.

The fix isn't complicated, but it does require intention. It starts with practical training, clear use cases, and a realistic conversation about what AI is genuinely useful for. It also means revisiting how you measure productivity, because if the metrics haven't changed but the nature of the work has, the numbers won't tell you the full story.

At Nettko, we help businesses get a clear picture of how technology is being used across their environment and whether it's set up to support the people relying on it. If AI adoption is on your agenda but you're not seeing the results you expected, we're happy to have that conversation.

Get in touch with the team at Nettko today.