There’s no shortage of debate about AI’s impact on work. Is it delivering real productivity gains ?

Lenny newsletter took it upon themselves to find out what’s actually happening on the ground by running one of the largest independent, in-depth surveys on how AI is affecting productivity for tech workers (1,750 respondents). They surveyed product managers, engineers, designers, founders, and others about how they’re using AI at work.

They realized that AI is overdelivering . This means that the ROI ( return on investment ) is guarantee :

1) 55% of respondents say AI has exceeded their expectations, and almost 70% say it’s improved the quality of their work ;

2) More than half of respondents said AI is saving them at least half a day per week on their most important tasks. We’ve never seen a tool deliver a productivity boost like this before ;

3) Founders are getting the most out of AI. Half (49%) report that AI saves them over 6 hours per week, dramatically higher than for any other role. Close to half (45%) also feel that the quality of their work is “much better” thanks to AI ;

4) Designers are seeing the fewest benefits. Only 45% report a positive ROI (compared with 78% of founders), and 31% report that AI has fallen below expectations, triple the rate among founders ;

5) Engineers have accepted AI as a coding partner and now want it to handle the more boring (but necessary) work of building products : documentation, code review, and writing tests ;

6) A whopping 92.4% of respondents report at least one significant downsides to using AI tools. There’s definitely room for improvement.

AI is far from the novelty it was a year or two years ago. It has clearly cemented a place as work and productivity infrastructure, and AI tools are improving at a breathtaking pace. If AI is already giving most people back at least half a day per week in late 2025, what does 2026 look like ? What about 2027 ? We’re watching the early innings of a compounding productivity revolution.