New York, 23 June 2026 – Nearly nine in ten U.S. office workers now use AI at work, but only one in four have fundamentally changed the way they work because of it, according to new research commissioned from OnePoll by AI email assistant Fyxer.
The survey of 2,000 office workers found that while AI adoption has become almost universal, the biggest productivity gains are concentrated among a small group of workers who use AI embedded directly into their daily workflow. It is estimated this "AI productivity gap" could represent as much as $2.6 trillion in unrealised productivity across the U.S. workforce.
The findings are published in Fyxer’s new report, The AI Productivity Trap, which explores why some workers are racing ahead in terms of productivity while others remain stuck with only minor gains.
"The AI adoption race is over," said Rich Hollingsworth, CEO of Fyxer. "Almost everyone is now using AI. Today’s challenge is helping people use it in a way that actually saves them time, significantly boosts their productivity, and genuinely transforms the way they work."
The rise of the AI Superworker
The report identifies a new category of worker: the AI Superworker. They represent just 25% of AI users but are achieving dramatically better outcomes. Among this group, 87% say AI has made them more productive, compared to 63% of all other AI users. What separates them most from everyone else is the type of AI tools they use and how they use them.
Workers using AI embedded directly into their workflow reported productivity gains 63 percentage points higher than those relying on separate AI tools, who saw just a 20% rise in productivity.
The highest-performing workers have found a way to use AI tools differently to the others. Instead of switching between separate AI tools, like ChatGPT or Claude, they're using embedded tools, such as meeting transcription, email management, workflow automation and AI-powered CRM tools that work in the background, inside the systems they already use.
