What Is 'Gray Work'? It's Killing Productivity — and Jobs in These 2 Industries Are Most at Risk, New Research Reveals. New research indicates that the rise in workplace tools isn't always for the best.
By Amanda Breen Edited by Brittany Robins
Key Takeaways
- Quickbase's 2025 Gray Work Report examines how workplace tools impact professionals and productivity.
- While AI adoption could help streamline productivity, the tech isn't without its own challenges.
- Here's what contributes to the "gray work" issue and how business leaders can help their teams overcome it.
These days, rapidly evolving workplace technology, like AI, has many professionals grappling with new productivity tools on a regular basis.
But not all employees believe the benefits outweigh the pain points.
One in seven workers refuse to use new tools, and 39% of them identify as reluctant users, according to the 2025 Workplace Tech Resistance report by Yooz, a provider of cloud-based purchase-to-pay automation solutions.
Software company Quickbase's 2025 Gray Work Report, which surveyed more than 2,000 full-time working professionals including C-level, manager-level and director respondents, took a closer look at how workplace tools impact professionals and productivity.
Related: Avoid These 10 Business Habits to Increase Workplace Productivity
What is "gray work"?
Quickbase defines "gray work" as the "hidden costs of disconnected data and manual workarounds" that often come with increased use of workplace tools and lead to declines in productivity.
According to the research, 80% of respondents reported increased investment in productivity, work management and collaboration tools, up from 66% in 2024, yet 59% agreed it feels harder than ever to be productive.
What's more, 73% of respondents said using multiple project management software solutions prevents sharing information easily and 75% said they make it difficult to see all data in one place. As a result, many workers asserted such tools cause delays (50%), reduce impact (53%) and waste time (59%).
Related: 10 Tips to Boost Employee Productivity and Skyrocket Performance
This tool-based productivity challenge spans different industries but is especially prevalent in the financial services/insurance and professional services industries, which saw manual work rise by 67% and 63% respectively compared to last year, per the report.
The research suggests that increased AI adoption could help streamline productivity with workplace tools but isn't without its own challenges. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents anticipate that their organization will increase its budget for AI tools in 2025; however, 89% of respondents have concerns around data security, compliance and privacy.
But there are ways to reduce gray work and optimize AI for productivity, per the study. Learn more here.
