The source list
Every source we cite, with its method and its limits.
Figures below are reproduced as published. We label who paid for the work and what the method can and cannot show. Where a number is self-reported or vendor-published, we say so next to the number rather than in a footnote.
How to read the labels
- Independent research
- No commercial interest in the outcome. Method published.
- Analyst research
- Structured method, but the publisher sells advice in this market.
- Practitioner survey
- Self-reported. Good for direction, unreliable for magnitude.
- Vendor or customer material
- A claim about the publisher's own product. Not a finding.
22 of 22 sources
- Independent researchSeptember 2023
Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier (Dell'Acqua et al., working paper 24-013)
Harvard Business School / BCG
Pre-registered randomised controlled trial, 758 consultants, two task sets inside and outside the model's frontier.
Cited in Marketing
- Independent researchJuly 2023
Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative AI
Science (Noy & Zhang, MIT)
Randomised controlled trial, 453 college-educated professionals, blind grading.
Cited in Marketing, Content creation
- Independent researchApril 2023, revised 2025
Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work”, NBER working paper #31161
National Bureau of Economic Research
Staggered rollout across 5,179 support agents at a Fortune 500 software firm; difference-in-differences on 3m+ conversations.
Cited in Customer service
- Independent researchJuly 2023
Jakob Nielsen, AI improves employee productivity by 66%
Nielsen Norman Group
Secondary analysis of three controlled studies, including the NBER dataset above.
Cited in Customer service
- Independent research2023–2025
Generative AI and knowledge-work productivity literature
National Bureau of Economic Research / academic replication
Randomised and quasi-experimental studies on structured analytical tasks.
Cited in Analytics
- Independent research2023
Public commentary, former Chief Decision Scientist, Google
Cassie Kozyrkov
Expert opinion. Not a study.
Cited in Analytics
- Analyst research2023–2024
Commercial excellence research on seller time allocation
Bain & Company
Client engagement data and time-allocation studies across B2B sales organisations.
Cited in Inside sales
- Analyst research2023–2025
The state of AI and sales-productivity research
McKinsey & Company
Cross-client benchmarking and executive surveys.
Cited in Inside sales
- Analyst research2022–2024
Data-preparation and analyst time-allocation research
Forrester
Practitioner surveys and client data across data and analytics teams.
Cited in Analytics
- Analyst researchJune 2023
The economic potential of generative AI
McKinsey Global Institute
Task-level modelling of occupational activity data against demonstrated capability.
Cited in Content creation
- Analyst research25 November 2025
Agents, robots, and us: skill partnerships in the age of AI
McKinsey Global Institute
Activity-level modelling across occupations, scenario-based value estimate.
Cited in Admin and operations
- Practitioner survey2024–2025
Aggregated practitioner survey reporting
Marketing practitioner surveys
Self-reported time savings, opt-in respondents, no control group.
Cited in Marketing
- Practitioner surveyJune 2026
Inaugural Work AI Index
Glean Work AI Institute
6,000 digital workers across the US, UK and Australia, surveyed December 2025 – January 2026.
Cited in Admin and operations
- Practitioner survey2022–2024
Manual-work and coordination-burden reporting
Aggregated reporting (McKinsey, Gartner, Formstack)
Aggregation of separate surveys with differing definitions of manual work.
Cited in Admin and operations
- Vendor or customer material2024–2025
Adoption reporting across marketing-technology vendors
Industry surveys
Vendor-run adoption surveys of their own user bases and mailing lists.
Cited in Marketing
- Vendor or customer material2025
Annual state-of-service reporting
Service-platform industry reporting
Platform telemetry from customers of the reporting vendor, plus a user survey.
Cited in Customer service
- Vendor or customer material2023–2025
Assorted supplier case studies
Vendor case studies
Single-customer accounts, published with the supplier's approval, no baseline disclosed.
Cited in Customer service
- Vendor or customer material2025
2025 state of prospecting report
Prospecting-tool vendor
Survey of the vendor's own users.
Cited in Inside sales
- Vendor or customer material2024–2026
Sales-agent marketing material
Assorted suppliers
Not disclosed.
Cited in Inside sales
- Vendor or customer material2024–2025
Published implementation write-ups
Practitioner case reports
Single-team accounts, usually published alongside a tool recommendation.
Cited in Analytics
- Vendor or customer material2024
Customer case study
Writer (supplier), with KPMG
Customer-reported before-and-after on selected workflows, published by the supplier.
Cited in Content creation
- Vendor or customer material2024–2025
Accounts-payable automation write-ups
Practitioner and supplier case reports
Single-process before-and-after, usually on straight-through-eligible invoices.
Cited in Admin and operations