AI Can Fix Your Most Hated Work Task—So Why Aren’t Bosses Letting It?
AI excels at the soul-numbing clerical tasks dragging down your team. Yet, 40 percent of businesses still insist on doing them manually.
First there were the fears that artificial intelligence (AI) tools would take over countless jobs that humans rely on for income. More recent data shows employee attitudes about the tech further souring, with many users complaining apps generate as much work as they eliminate. Then there’s the rising tide of slop bots generate that inundate workplaces if it’s not carefully vetted first. Against all that, why should workers look forward to a future of AI automating their tasks?
Because it turns out the tech excels doing the kind of repetitive, uninteresting, low value, and generally dismal administrative chores that makes them the most miserable—when, that is, employers allow apps to take over that slog.
That’s the main reminder from business service platform 8AM, whose 2026 Admin Misery Index offers evidence of AI’s capacity—but still limited use—to take on most of that hated clerical drudge work. Despite the tech’s rapid spread across workplaces to automate other tasks, many of the legal, accounting, client-focused, and other professionals 8AM surveyed said employers need to go considerably farther and faster in allowing apps take over soul-numbing administrative chores they’re still forced to slog through.
Doing so, moreover, promises to boost companies’ productivity and income, as staff freed from repetitive scut tasks spend more time on more valuable activities.
Indeed, 72 percent of respondents said administrative chores
Indeed, 72 percent of respondents said administrative chores like time tracking, invoicing, and compliance paperwork prevent them from focusing on their core responsibilities. That led nearly 45 percent of survey participants to report that those often pro forma chores eat up an average four hours each week that could have been spend on value-producing tasks—or billable hours in the case of legal businesses. That figure rose to 82 percent among staffers who lose at least one hour each week to that grind.
“These admin headaches form one continuous chain: time tracking failures delay billing, delayed billing stalls collection, stalled collection generates more client back-and-forth,” an 8AM report on the findings said. “That’s why time tracking, billing, and payment collection dominate the list of tasks (professionals) most want AI to take off their plate.”
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Admin work also negatively effects employees themselves.
Around 73 percent of respondents said those tasks leave them feeling miserable at least some of the time, and 80 percent blamed them for the dread and glumness of “Sunday scaries” they suffer each weekend.
Those repetitive chores also lengthen the workweek, with nearly 60 percent of survey participants saying they remain on the job outside normal hours to deal with administrative duties—31 percent of respondents also saying they’ve lost paid time off to them.
Source: www.inc.com
