AI has not ended file chaos for workers, survey finds

Research published by Smallpdf suggests working professionals lose 65 hours a year to file and document problems. The survey covered 1,011 respondents.

The findings indicate that widespread use of artificial intelligence tools has not removed routine workplace friction around finding, converting, sharing and recovering files.

Among respondents classified as high performers, 94% said they use AI at work and 65% said they use two or more AI assistants. Daily use rose with seniority, from 19% among individual contributors to 32% among managers and 47% among senior leaders.

ChatGPT was the most widely used AI assistant in that group at 71%, followed by Google Gemini at 48%, Microsoft Copilot at 40% and Claude at 25%. High performers were also 2.3 times more likely than the wider workforce to use Perplexity and 2.2 times more likely to use Meta AI.

Yet broader software use appears to have created a more layered digital environment rather than a simpler one. High performers used an average of 3.4 devices in a typical day, compared with 2.9 for the rest of the sample, and about seven active tools a week versus six for the wider workforce.

Smartphones now play a central role in that setup. Some 77% of high performers said they use a smartphone for work on a typical day, compared with 75% who use a laptop, 69% who use a desktop computer and 57% who use an external monitor.

Despite that shift, larger screens remained important for higher-value tasks. Among high performers, 43% said they do their highest-value work on a laptop, 36% on a desktop setup and 13% across multiple screens.

Where time goes

The biggest share of lost time came from organising and finding files, which accounted for 28% of the document tasks respondents said consumed the most time. File conversion made up 16%, followed by sharing or sending files at 15%, compressing or resizing files at 9% and signing documents at 6%.

These routine problems also had visible day-to-day consequences. Nearly a third of professionals, or 31%, said they had recreated a document from scratch, while 24% said digital disorganisation had left them looking unprepared in front of colleagues, clients or others.

Another 22% said they had lost work they could not recover, and 7% said digital disorganisation had caused them to miss a deadline.

The findings suggest productivity may depend less on the number of digital tools employees use and more on how easily they can move between systems. Cloud use illustrates that shift, with 79% of high performers describing themselves as cloud-first, compared with 64% of the general workforce.

Even so, 48% of high performers said they keep copies of files both locally and in the cloud, suggesting many workers still rely on parallel storage habits rather than a single approach.

High performers

The study defined high performers before analysis using three conditions. Respondents had to be in a Manager, Senior Leader or Executive role, have received a promotion or significant pay rise in the previous two years, and rate their own job performance as above average or in the top 10%.

Using that measure, 248 respondents, or 25% of the sample, were grouped as high performers, while 763 were classified as the general workforce. The report noted that the results show correlation rather than causation because job performance was self-reported and professional success was partly self-defined.

Traditional organisational habits produced only modest differences between the two groups. Clear and consistent file names were used by 86% of high performers and 83% of the general workforce. Meanwhile, 82% of high performers said they keep notifications under control, compared with 80% of other workers.

A similar pattern appeared elsewhere. Some 77% of high performers said they reuse a saved system or template, compared with 74% of the broader workforce, and 74% said they maintain a tidy desktop, against 70% of other respondents.

On inbox management, high performers were slightly behind. The survey found 45% kept their inbox at or near zero, compared with 47% of the general workforce.

Efficiency gap

The bigger difference appeared to be speed of access. Some 26% of high performers said they could find a six-month-old document in under a minute, compared with 20% of the general workforce.

High performers were also more likely to describe their digital setup as streamlined and efficient. That view was held by 45% of high performers, compared with 33% of the general workforce and 36% of all respondents.

Across the sample, 62% said their setup was manageable but could be better. When asked what single improvement would make the biggest difference, 19% chose faster file finding and another 19% chose easier file converting, signing and sharing.

Among high performers, easier converting, signing and sharing was the most common answer at 22%. The figures point to persistent strain in document handling even among workers who use AI tools heavily and report strong career progress.

The annual estimate of 65 hours lost was based on weekly responses extrapolated across 52 weeks and converted into eight-hour workdays. Numeric answers, including tools used and hours lost, were averaged after outliers were removed using the interquartile range method with a single global fence for comparability.