Airteam Research: From Time Savings To Compounding Gains: What 1,003 Australians Told Us About AI At Work.

As part of our ongoing research at Airteam, we asked 1,003 Australian adults about their use of AI at work.

What we found is very clear. AI is not just saving time; it is creating a compounding productivity advantage.

Summing up the findings, Airteam’s Executive Director - Technology Rich Atkinson said “What stands out in this research is not just the 520 hours a year Australians are saving with AI, it is what they are doing with that time. The fact that 58% are reinvesting it into learning and process improvement tells us this is not a one-off productivity bump. It is a compounding advantage for the workers and organisations who lean into it.”

Let’s get into the data.

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How much time are Australians saving with AI at work?

Across the workforce, Australians who use AI at work report an average saving of:

• 2 hours per day
• 10 hours per week
• 520 hours per year

That annual saving is the equivalent of:

• 65 full workdays, or
• almost three months of work time

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In other words, workers who use AI effectively are gaining back more than a full day every week.

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Most AI users are not working less, they are working differently

Airteam’s research shows that AI time savings are not mainly being used to clock off early.

Among employees who use AI at work:

• 83% spend their saved time on work-related activities
• Only 17% use AI to reduce their working hours

So the dominant pattern is not “do the same work in less time”.

It is “use AI to move more of the right work forward”.

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58% are building compounding productivity

The most interesting group in the data is the 58% of AI users who reinvest their saved time into building capabilities and better systems.

Within this group:

• 35% use their saved time for professional development and learning
• 34% focus on process improvement and workflow optimisation

They are not just getting today’s tasks done faster. They are upgrading skills and fixing processes, which then creates further productivity gains over time.

On top of that:

• 34% use AI time savings to complete more core work tasks
• 23% use the extra time for personal wellbeing activities

This paints AI as a lever for both performance and resilience, not just speed. Indeed, on reviewing the productivity analysis, Rich said “The 58% of AI users who are using their saved time to build skills and streamline workflows are quietly rewriting the productivity playbook. They are not just getting through the inbox faster, they are redesigning how work gets done. The opportunity for leaders is to move more of their people into that group, in a safe and structured way.”

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A clear generational gap in AI driven productivity

AI adoption is not evenly spread across the workforce.

• 80% of workers aged 18 to 24 use AI tools at work
  • They save around 2.5 hours per day, or about 12.5 hours per week
• Across all employees under 45, 72% have embraced AI in their roles
• Among workers over 45, adoption drops to 41%
• Among Australians over 65, only 30% use AI at work

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Younger workers are therefore gaining a significant time and capability advantage.

They are using AI to create almost an extra working day each week for learning, process improvement and higher value tasks.

According to Rich, “Younger Australians are already banking an extra workday each week through AI, while many older workers are yet to start. In a country where productivity growth has been stuck below 1%, helping more people use AI well is one of the clearest levers we have. This research shows the gains are real, now it is about spreading them.”

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Why this matters for Australia’s productivity story

All of this is happening against the backdrop of a national productivity problem.

Australia’s 20 year average annual productivity growth sits at around 0.8%, which is historically low.

The survey results suggest three important signals for leaders:

1. AI is already delivering material time savings of around 25% of the working day for users.
2. Most employees are reinvesting that time in work, not simply logging off.
3. A majority subset, 58%, is using the time for learning and process improvement, which creates compounding gains.

Popular tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot are at the centre of this shift. Copilot, in particular, is gaining ground in offices because it integrates with everyday Microsoft tools and supports enterprise-grade data controls.

The headline is simple.

AI has already given many Australian workers back more than 500 hours a year.

The real opportunity now lies in supporting more people to move into that 58% group who use those hours to upgrade how they work, not just how fast they work.

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About the data

The data used in this research are from a survey commissioned by Airteam, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adult Australians who were asked how much time using AI saves them each day in their jobs.

Calculations of time savings over the course of the year are based on 52 full weeks and don’t account for annual leave or public holidays, as these vary by industry.

The release also references data on productivity from the ABS as at FY24 and the February ACCC DPSI Consumer Survey Research Report.