Generative AI adoption leads the charge in the professional and business services, with over half (51.9%) of employees using GenAI tools, according to Prodoscore’s Q4 2025 Productivity Pulse report. Among employees who used AI, productivity was high, with managers in professional and business services reporting a 44% increase in activity compared to non-AI users.
“Our Q4 data shows that productivity is increasingly shaped by how effectively organizations apply AI and flexibility under real business pressure,” says Sam Naficy, CEO of Prodoscore. “Hybrid work continues to deliver strong outcomes, while AI adoption and usage are creating clearer performance differences across roles and industries. These trends underscore how data-driven visibility helps leaders better understand how work is getting done and enables them to make more informed decisions as they kick off the New Year.”
Key takeaways:
- All hybrid workforce combinations – excluding a one-day-in, four-days-remote model – outperformed fully in-office and fully remote employees, highlighting the productivity benefits of flexibility. This performance was supported by strong adoption of core tools across industries, with email and messaging/chat emerging as the most widely used overall.
- For the third consecutive quarter, industrial and logistics remained the most productive industry. The sector’s sustained productivity may be tied to steady consumer and e-commerce demand during the holiday season and a slow but ongoing recovery in global supply chains. Additionally, utilities and essential services saw the largest quarter-over-quarter improvement, with productivity increasing 14.9%, which may be tied to modernization efforts, new regulatory demands or emerging infrastructure investment cycles.
- Innovation teams drove departmental productivity gains, recording the largest quarter-over-quarter increase, rising 16.1%, potentially reflecting the immediate application of new technologies and increased efficiency pressures.
- The HR specialist was the most productive role in Q4, reflecting heightened year-end activity tied to open enrollment, performance reviews, compliance, reporting, budgeting and planning. Assistant controllers posted the largest quarter-over-quarter productivity increase, up 27.9%. At the same time, data analytics and corporate counsel roles recorded the lowest productivity levels, with the latter potentially tied to reduced demand for transactional work at the end of the year.
- Thursday replaced Tuesday as the busiest meeting day, with employees averaging one hour and 28 minutes in meetings that day. Software employees logged the highest meeting load at 5 hours and six minutes per week, highlighting continued variation in collaboration demands across industries.
