BCG Survey: 42% of Workers Save 8 Hours Weekly With AI, But Most Get No Guidance on Using the Time

Boston Consulting Group’s 2026 Global AI at Work report found that 42% of nearly 12,000 surveyed frontline employees saved eight hours per week through regular AI use. The same survey showed 66% received limited or no guidance on how to spend the saved time, and half said they were not applying it to more strategic work.

Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok wrote in a blog post earlier this year that AI appears in daily work but not in macroeconomic statistics.

“AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data,” Slok stated, noting the absence of measurable effects in employment, productivity, and inflation figures. David Martin, global leader of BCG’s People & Organization practice, told Fortune that senior leaders struggle to define AI strategy.

“Senior leaders are really struggling to articulate what the vision and strategy is on AI,” Martin said.

He added that unclear direction increases employee fear and slows adoption. Several companies reported sharp rises in AI-related computing costs. Microsoft canceled much of its direct Claude code licenses.

Uber exhausted its entire 2026 AI coding tools budget in the first four months of the year. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman told Bloomberg that Anthropic’s services are too expensive and the company is seeking alternatives. Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, told Axios that compute costs for his team exceed employee costs.

The Financial Times reported last month that Amazon employees engaged in “tokenmaxxing” to meet internal AI metrics. Meta introduced an AI user leaderboard.