AI Can Help Knowledge Workers Fix These Five Frustrations - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM ATLASSIAN

By Dr. Molly Sands

How often do you find yourself spending too much time looking for a file that you or your coworkers swear was saved as “Final Draft (version 6.5)” or drafting, redrafting, and second-guessing an email until you’re caught in an overthinking spiral?

AI collaboration can make these headaches a thing of the past. Beyond AI agents that can help you write emails and reports, organize schedules, and summarize meetings, AI can also take on more meaningful work, actively pulling out key insights from mountains of dispersed data to help you drive efficiencies and create value.

Collaborative AI is reshaping how knowledge workers do their jobs. It tackles drudgery and simplifies the complex so you can focus on the good stuff: big ideas, creative breakthroughs, personal growth, and making your company stronger.

The most advanced AI users produce a higher quality of work, are seen as more innovative by their coworkers, and save twice as much time as their less AI-mature counterparts, according to the AI Collaboration Report, which surveyed 5,000 global knowledge workers. These AI collaborators won’t just work smarter over the next decade; they’ll say goodbye—forever—to the tasks that drain energy and steal time.

Five common workplace frustrations will finally meet their well-deserved demise over the next few years, thanks to AI collaboration, with no tears shed.

1. Staring at a Blank Page

Few things are more intimidating than a blank page. The fear of getting started (FOGS) often stops top employees from doing their best work. Whether you’re writing a report, kicking off a project, or drafting a creative brief, the FOGS can make the first step seem near impossible.

Collaborative AI acts as a thought partner to help you get your brain moving. By generating initial drafts, creative prompts, or structured outlines, AI removes the mental barriers that can delay progress so you can get started and focus on the big picture—refining ideas and delivering results that make a real impact.

2. Feeling Bogged Down by Monotonous Tasks

Spending hours on routine, mundane work drains your energy, leaving you feeling disengaged and uninspired. Collaborative AI helps breathe new life into your workday by automating repetitive tasks—scheduling meetings, organizing documents, pulling data—to give you back the time and mental bandwidth to focus on high-impact creative and strategic work that sparks excitement and keeps you energized.

This isn’t just about doing things faster. With AI handling monotonous tasks, the most mature AI collaborators are more likely to report they feel energized and motivated, which is linked to higher job satisfaction and reduced levels of burnout.

3. Wasting Time on Inefficiencies

Knowledge workers often juggle dozens of projects and a range of complex deliverables at once, overwhelming them to the point where they sacrifice meaningful breaks. More than three-quarters of non-remote corporate workers eat lunch at their desks at least half the time for convenience and productivity.

More-mature AI collaborators save up to 105 minutes daily—nearly double the 53 minutes less-experienced users save—so they stay on task without sacrificing balance and well-being. As AI adoption increases, workers report feeling less overwhelmed and more capable of completing their core responsibilities.

And as AI collaborators handle their daily tasks, they can get ahead of schedule: 85% of the most mature AI collaborators deliver work on time, compared to 51% of less-experienced users. With less stress and more efficiency, workers can focus on personal growth, creativity, and, yes, even enjoying a proper lunch break.

4. Feeling Decision Fatigue

Confident and prompt decision making is a hallmark of high-performing employees and effective leaders. Yet when faced with too much information or too little time, decision fatigue often sets in.

Collaborative AI provides data-driven recommendations that can help workers prioritize their work, reducing the cognitive load of decision making to help them focus their energy on outcomes, not processes.

Leadership plays a critical role in fostering this shift, unlocking better decision making, improved team performance, and more-efficient workflows; 82% of the most strategic AI collaborators say their leaders encourage them to experiment with AI, compared to 48% of less-mature users. Those with leadership support save 55% more time daily (84 minutes vs. 55 minutes) and are 2.5 times more likely to evolve into strategic AI collaborators.

5. Getting Stuck in Your Lane

AI doesn’t just speed up mundane tasks; it empowers you to take on more challenging and complex work by helping you expand your skill sets and lower barriers to learning. By analyzing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, and generating actionable insights, AI can help workers tackle more strategic initiatives with confidence.

Mature AI users are viewed as more innovative by their peers, who value their enhanced decision-making abilities. AI collaborators are also 1.5 times more likely to reinvest the time they save using AI into learning new skills, ensuring continuous growth and adaptability.

Strong AI Collaborators Set Themselves Apart

Collaborative AI represents a workplace transformation unlike any before. By tackling the frustrations of tedious tasks, decision fatigue, and time-consuming inefficiencies, AI empowers workers to focus on what truly matters—innovation, growth, and impact.

From getting back the time we need to think big to helping turn insight into action, you can think about AI less as a tool to solve short-term problems and more as a long-term strategic teammate.

The best work over the next 10 years will come from teams and organizations that embrace AI as a collaborator, not just a utility. It’s time to say goodbye to outdated ways of working and hello to a smarter, more fulfilling way of getting things done.

To learn more about how Atlassian can help your organization transform teamwork with human-AI collaboration, go to atlassian.com.

Dr. Molly Sands is the head of Atlassian’s Teamwork Lab, which designs and validates best practices for distributed work.