Everyone’s jumping on the AI bandwagon. But actually making it work? That’s where we hit speed bumps.
For many companies, it’s an implementation challenge. Work lives in so many tools that it’s near impossible to integrate AI across those disconnected systems. We recently surveyed one thousand professionals responsible for productivity-software decisions, and while they’re struggling to make their tools play nicely together, they’re incredibly eager to bring AI into their workflows.
Yet despite the enthusiasm for what could be, companies still struggle to integrate AI into daily work. In plain terms, there’s a gap between aspiration and reality.
Is your company AI-ready?
From startups to global enterprises, organizations are having a tough time unlocking AI’s true potential. Our research shows that integrating AI into existing systems remains the single most challenging issue for decision-makers in the past year.
It’s a familiar struggle—even with powerful AI capabilities on the market, teams still find themselves dealing with the same frustrations: jumping between tools to find documents, searching for information in disconnected systems, and manually connecting disparate workflows. This tool fragmentation and forced context-switching isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a liability that limits productivity.
AI has long been touted as the answer to these challenges, and while that promise is undeniable, decision-makers are still looking for solutions. The future of AI at work depends not just on its capabilities, but on how well these tools integrate, build trust, and scale across organizations.
In our research, three major pain points emerged:
Incompatible workflows: Teams often have to manually prepare or import data before AI tools can even be used. This slows down adoption and limits scalability.
Resource constraints: The cost of buying, customizing, and maintaining AI tools can quickly balloon—especially for smaller teams with limited budgets and teammates.
Data quality and trust: As one respondent put it, “hallucinations are very real.” AI-generated outputs still require manual review, making teams cautious about full integration.
What’s driving interest? Productivity and AI
Despite these challenges, organizations still clearly see the potential of AI. Their interest continues to rise, reshaping how they approach their software stack. AI capabilities now rank among the top reasons companies explore new tools.
57 percent of decision-makers said improving team productivity was their primary motivation, while 44 percent pointed specifically to AI as a driver for evaluating new platforms.
AI has evolved beyond being a future investment or niche feature—it’s now become a top-down mandate (Duolingo’s here). Leaders are seeking practical, integrated solutions that help teams work faster, maintain focus, and reduce daily friction.
Organizations need tools that can help them summarize, synthesize, and search through information more efficiently. They want AI to reduce their cognitive burden, not create additional complexity.
How Notion AI Is Delivering Real Productivity Gains
While many tools are still figuring out how to deliver on AI’s promise, some are already making a measurable impact.
Take Notion AI as an example. Here’s what users tell us:
86 percent of Notion AI users say they’d feel disappointed without it, showing just how quickly it becomes a core part of their daily work.
Over 70 percent say Notion AI improves the quality of their work, helps them process information faster, and reduces the time spent searching for what they need.
50 percent of Notion AI users report saving more than an hour each week, thanks to features like AI Meeting Notes that captures and summarizes meetings, and Enterprise Search that unifies information across connected tools in one powerful search experience.
AI-driven productivity goes beyond speed and convenience. Notion AI reduces manual work, frees up focus time, and helps teams operate with greater clarity and impact.
What’s next: AI as the new foundation of work
While the path forward has its challenges, companies that embrace this transformation will find AI becoming not just another tool, but the very foundation of how they work.
As workplace complexity continues to increase, organizations that use tools like Notion where AI is embedded into existing workflows will be positioned to adapt more quickly, collaborate more effectively, and maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly AI-focused world.
