# AI tools create new headaches for managers

> Companies deploy AI to boost productivity, but managers struggle to evaluate work, manage tools, and oversee autonomous agents.
- Title: AI tools create new headaches for managers · TechCrunch
- Summary: Companies deploy AI to boost productivity, but managers struggle to evaluate work, manage tools, and oversee autonomous agents. A Nielsen survey of seventeen…
- Keywords: artificial intelligence, workplace management, employee evaluation, ai adoption, monday.com, nielsen survey, ai governance, performance reviews, technology, startups, tools, create
- Source: TechCrunch — https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/ai-promises-productivity-but-for-managers-its-mostly-a-headache-for-now-says-new-survey
- Author: Ram Iyer
- Published: 2026-10-21T14:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: artificial intelligence, workplace management, employee evaluation, ai adoption, monday.com, nielsen survey, ai governance, performance reviews, technology, startups
## Managers struggle to evaluate AI-assisted work
More than half of senior leaders say they find it harder to evaluate employees' work after adopting AI, according to a Nielsen survey of one thousand seven hundred directors and senior managers across seven countries…
## Polished output hides the employee's contribution
Much of employees' output now arrives polished in the manager's inbox, making it hard to tell how much came from the employee and how much from AI.
## Managers spend more time reviewing work
Nearly half of managers say they spend more time reviewing and guiding their teams' output than they used to.
## Managers are excited about AI despite challenges
Ninety-four percent of the managers polled said they were excited to improve work using AI, and many are confident they know where to use it to get the most value.
## AI is moving faster than companies can adapt
Michal Miller Levi, head of market research and customer insights at monday.com, said AI is developing faster than companies can adapt. AI works well individually but managers have a different role driving the organization.

> AI is just moving faster than the organizational processes
## Managers change how they evaluate employees
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they have changed how they evaluate employees after adopting AI, placing greater weight on how well staff can create prompts and decide which tasks to delegate to AI.
## Managers use AI to make performance decisions
Forty-six percent of managers use AI to help inform their decisions, and thirty-nine percent of leaders are using AI to draft performance reviews, risking bias from AI models trained on human patterns.
## Software stacks grow more complex
Fifty-seven percent of managers say their organizations now have more tools in circulation than before, and fifty-one percent said their tools had grown more interdependent since adopting AI.
## Managers expect more AI agents than employees
Fifty-eight percent of managers expect to oversee more AI agents than human employees within the next year, and forty-six percent worry about losing control over those agents' actions.
## AI adoption becomes a governance problem
The report's findings show that AI adoption is increasingly becoming as much a governance problem as it is an opportunity to raise productivity. Without proper processes and infrastructure, managers are scrambling to keep things running.
## Key takeaway

A Nielsen survey of seventeen hundred managers across seven countries finds AI adoption is creating governance problems faster than companies can solve them.