AI promises productivity, but for managers, it’s mostly a headache for now, says new survey

A survey of 1,700 directors and senior managers across seven countries found that AI is complicating oversight: more than half said employee work is harder to evaluate, and nearly half spend more time reviewing and guiding output. While 94% were excited about improving work with AI, 78% have changed how they evaluate employees and 39% use AI to draft performance reviews, raising concerns about bias and accountability. Fifty-seven percent reported more tools in use, while 58% expect to oversee more AI agents than human employees within a year.

Analysis

The investable signal is not AI enthusiasm; it is that adoption may add coordination and control costs before it delivers measurable labor savings. That weakens the near-term case for broad productivity-driven software seat expansion and raises the value of workflow orchestration, permissions, auditability, and human approval layers. Those needs could support monday.com, but the survey does not establish willingness to pay, product adoption, or revenue conversion—and it was commissioned by the company. Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Atlassian are plausible competitors for control points; security and identity vendors may capture value where agent permissions and audit trails become gating requirements.

For MNDY, the second-order risk is that more fragmented tools create demand for coordination while also making customers scrutinize overlapping subscriptions and delay expansion until governance is clearer. In the next 1–3 months, look for evidence in product disclosures, customer commentary, and guidance that AI features are driving paid adoption rather than usage alone. Over 6–18 months, agent oversight could become a durable workflow category, but value may accrue to platform incumbents rather than a standalone work-management layer.

Contrarian read: the survey’s tool proliferation challenges the assumed near-term software-consolidation benefit, but it does not prove consolidation is permanently off the table. No immediate directional trade: the evidence is indirect and the beneficiary is uncertain. The thesis improves if MNDY demonstrates paid AI attach and customer expansion; it weakens if AI usage rises without monetization or customers consolidate spend into broader platforms.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Keep MNDY on watch rather than trade the survey. Verify paid AI adoption, net expansion/customer commentary, and whether AI-related product usage converts into incremental revenue.
• Treat broad software-seat growth as a less reliable near-term thesis: governance work and tool sprawl could absorb productivity gains and make buyers more cautious about renewals and add-ons.
• Monitor Microsoft, ServiceNow, Atlassian, and security/identity providers for evidence that agent controls, permissions, and auditability are becoming budgeted products; do not assume monday.com captures that spend.
• Falsifiers: MNDY reports sustained paid AI uptake and stronger customer expansion, supporting the orchestration thesis; conversely, rising usage without monetization, weaker expansion, or customer consolidation into incumbent platforms would argue against it.