Earlier this year, the 4 Day Week Foundation announced that 200 UK companies signed up for a permanent four-day working week with employees on full pay. With three new pilot programs planned in 2025 to further explore the benefits and challenges of a reduced working week, there is growing momentum behind the concept. However, whilst adoption can be observed across various sectors and regions, large enterprises have notably remained cautious.
It’s important to consider what’s holding back Britain’s biggest businesses from embracing this shift to more flexible work. At the heart of their hesitation are concerns about alignment, productivity, and the fear that fewer working days could mean reduced momentum. However, businesses cannot tackle this on their own and AI powered tools can help alleviate many of these concerns and obstacles.
GM international and SMB at Asana.
AI’s potential to cut out mundane work
A modern approach to work doesn’t necessarily mean working less, it means working smarter. A central component to this is using AI tools to streamline activities, boost productivity and take on the heavy lifting of repetitive tasks that drain time and focus. The Asana Work Innovation Lab found that 67% of UK workers use AI at least weekly for their individual work, with 37% using it daily.
Embracing flexible working arrangements doesn’t have to mean sacrificing efficiency. AI can substantially alleviate these concerns by automating repetitive, mundane tasks such as data entry, preliminary research and report generation. Instead, AI frees up employees to focus on high-value activities offsetting the perceived loss of a working day.
Moreover, AI can help ensure continuity in projects and operations by providing instant access to consolidated, real-time data and predictive analytics. With these tools, businesses can remain agile and aligned, regardless of a shortened week.
To achieve this impact, AI must be embedded where work happens, within business-critical workflows. Only then can AI function alongside humans as an autonomous team member, meaningfully reducing overwhelm and increasing productivity.
What’s holding back larger companies
Continuity becomes especially critical for large enterprises where operational consistency is non-negotiable. These organization’s leaders, often grappling with teams operating from different locations, complex workflows, and deeply entrenched cultures, worry that flexible working might create more gaps than bridges.
Against this backdrop, the hesitance from leaders towards the four-day week is understandable. Leaders at large companies are tasked with maintaining continuous operations, consistency across departments, and productivity levels. Losing a traditional workday can appear disruptive, potentially causing alignment issues or slowing critical projects. This is why, rather than being a “nice to have,” AI should be seen as a “must have” in alleviating these concerns.
In large companies, senior leaders often understand the strategic value of AI, but may underestimate the practical challenges employees face in using new technologies. Without adequate training, support, and a clearly articulated vision of how AI can improve their work experience, employees struggle to integrate these tools effectively.
In contrast, when employees can clearly see the benefits AI brings to their daily tasks, adoption rates increase, leading to wider organizational efficiency and smoother workflows. This “showing, not telling” approach is a key way for senior leaders to enable their teams to move forward.
Scaling AI use across teams
Once AI is effectively deployed alongside comprehensive, accessible training programs, the next challenge is scaling this effectively across the entire organization to truly unlock flexibility without compromising productivity.
This is important because companies that have broadly integrated AI across their operations are seeing much greater returns on investment compared to those still experimenting with it in isolated teams or limited use cases. Our research found that AI ‘Scalers’ are 43% more likely to report revenue gains and 40% more likely to report boosted productivity.
Despite these evident advantages, there remains a striking lack of AI use beyond simple individual experimentation. Research shows nearly half of AI workflows are built for individual use, driving only 6% of AI adoption by colleagues and peers. Furthermore, data suggests that AI adoption is trapped in a ‘leadership bubble’, with senior leaders being 66% more likely to be early AI adopters than their employees. The net result is as many as 67% of companies fail to scale AI tools effectively across their organizations.
Before companies can truly scale AI within their organization, they must first examine how teamwork happens. If teams are operating in silos, workers are more likely to continue using AI for solo use rather than unlock AI use within teams – and crucially, across different team functions, where we are seeing the strongest impact.
The majority of AI workflows being designed for individual use needs to change if AI is to achieve widespread adoption and add tangible value. Companies that achieve this transition will be best positioned to offer initiatives like the four-day week without sacrificing alignment across teams.
The desire for flexible working is clear, with our research showing that currently only 16% of British workers stick to the traditional 9-5 schedule. The next stage is overseeing how a four-day week can be unlocked – and the answer may just lie in AI tools.
Companies that successfully integrate AI and automation into their operations won’t just sustain productivity levels, they’ll boost them. Employees, freed from the burden of routine tasks, can contribute more meaningfully to their organizations.
The path toward adopting the four-day week isn’t simply about cutting hours, it’s about enhancing efficiency through smarter work practices enabled by AI.
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