Everyone wants to talk about how artificial intelligence will transform work. Companies are spending billions on AI tools, executives are throwing the term into every earnings call, and vendors are promising productivity gains that sound almost too good to be true.
Some of those promises are actually coming true.
According to new research from FranklinCovey, workers say AI is making them more efficient and helping them get their jobs done faster. One technology leader interviewed for the report said AI tools cut work time by as much as 75 percent while reducing costs by as much as 40 percent. That’s not nothing.
But here’s the problem, folks. Saving time isn’t the same thing as using time well.
FranklinCovey found that only 35 percent of employees reinvest the time saved by AI into innovation, strategic thinking, or building stronger relationships with customers. In other words, AI might finish the work faster, but many organizations simply fill the extra time with more meetings, more approvals, and more bureaucracy.
The report calls this the “baseline trap.” AI raises the floor for everyone, meaning today’s competitive advantage quickly becomes tomorrow’s standard feature. Eventually your competitors will have access to the same chatbots, the same models, and the same automations.
Then what? According to FranklinCovey, the winners will be the companies that are still good at the things technology can’t automate away: trust, leadership, communication, judgment, and collaboration.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t seem particularly great at those things.
Only 9 percent of employees say their managers explain how AI will help the business grow. Nearly half of workers remain unclear about how AI will affect their jobs, while 42 percent say best practices for AI simply aren’t shared consistently across their organizations.
That uncertainty creates its own problems. Employees fill information gaps with assumptions, and those assumptions are rarely optimistic.
FranklinCovey also uncovered something that feels surprisingly familiar in 2026: workers may be getting more productive while becoming less engaged. Nearly three in ten employees reported feeling less motivated than they did a year ago, and some leaders interviewed for the report said increased AI usage has reduced interactions between coworkers and left employees feeling isolated.
As someone who spends a lot of time covering AI, I think that’s one of the more interesting findings here.
AI can summarize a meeting, but it can’t replace the conversation that should have happened before the meeting was scheduled in the first place.
It can draft an email, but it can’t build trust between coworkers. It can also explain a strategy document, but it can’t make employees believe in the strategy.
Companies are going to keep buying AI tools because they probably should. Ignoring AI in 2026 would be like ignoring the internet twenty years ago.
But if your managers can’t communicate, your teams don’t trust leadership, and your employees spend half their day waiting for approval to do their jobs, ChatGPT licenses aren’t going to save you.
FranklinCovey’s report makes a compelling argument that the companies winning the AI race may end up looking surprisingly old fashioned. They’ll use the latest technology available, sure, but they’ll also remember that businesses are still run by people.
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