When workplace technology stalls, so does productivity. In the United States, workers are feeling that impact more acutely than many of their global peers. That’s according to Teamviewer’s recent Impact of Digital Friction 2025 report, which surveyed over 4,200 employees and managers across nine countries. The findings point to a clear headline issue: America’s digital workplace is increasingly defined by friction – everyday obstacles in the tools people rely on. Those obstacles are adding up, with real consequences for revenue, performance, and employee retention.
U.S. workers lose more time than global peers
Across all global markets, employees lose an average of just over ten hours each month to digital friction – from rebooting a device to getting locked out of an account and troubleshooting a frozen app. But in the U.S. that rises to nearly twelve hours of lost time.
It’s easy to think of these moments as isolated nuisances. But multiply those interruptions across thousands of workers, and the strain becomes far more significant. In a workforce that is far more distributed and remote than many other countries, the U.S. sees the compounding effect more acutely. For example, when access is a prerequisite for getting anything done, a single VPN interruption can stall an entire workflow, breaking momentum and having an impact long after the initial moment where it occurs.
What stands out most from the data is how consistent these experiences are. Regardless of sector or job role, the vast majority of workers report losing time to IT dysfunction. In an era where digital tools underpin almost every aspect of knowledge work, the cost of this lost time becomes a quiet but powerful drag on productivity.
The cost isn’t just time; it’s revenue
The productivity story only tells half the picture. The business impact of digital friction is becoming harder to overlook. Half of U.S. workers told us their organisations have experienced revenue loss as a direct result of technology issues, which is a higher proportion than many global peers.
Behind those numbers are real operational challenges. Missed deadlines, delayed projects, disrupted customer engagements, and slow response times are all downstream effects of unreliable systems. And in tight-margin or high-pressure industries, those delays can very quickly translate into financial impact. In fast-moving sectors like financial services or healthcare, where the speed of delivery is particularly essential, even small interruptions can shift market position and give competitors an advantage.
The findings indicate that America’s digital infrastructure is not only a source of day-to-day frustration but a growing strain on overall performance. When every interruption slows a workflow or derails a time-critical task, the cumulative effect becomes a structural barrier to productivity and growth, hampering financial output.
AI gives workers hope, but trust remains a challenge
With the financial stakes of digital friction now impossible to ignore, it’s no surprise that many workers are looking to AI as a practical way to reduce disruptions and protect performance. In fact, TeamViewer’s research shows a notable shift in sentiment: 46% of respondents believe AI tools could resolve issues faster than humans and reduce the friction they face each day. What’s more, 50% of Americans are open to AI handling everyday troubleshooting and routine IT tasks so they can focus on more meaningful work.
But access and readiness do not yet match willingness to embrace AI. Only a minority of employees feel confident that their organisations are providing modern digital or AI tools. In the U.S., where digital adoption tends to be faster, 58% of workers expressed scepticism about whether IT departments are equipped to deliver the latest solutions.
This creates a widening gap: growing optimism about AI’s potential, paired with uncertainty about whether organisations can trust it and implement it effectively.Part of the challenge is that many organisations have adopted AI at the surface level, such as chatbots and basic automation, without building the underlying infrastructure needed to make AI context-aware. Employees notice the promise, but also the gaps. Closing that gap will be critical.
AI isn’t a magic fix, but it represents an important opportunity to make work smoother and minimise wasted time with practical solutions.
A global perspective: what the US can learn
Digital friction is universal, but it doesn’t look the same everywhere. Japan reports the lowest time lost to dysfunctional IT (just over 6 hours) but the highest concern (75%) about access to modern tools. India experiences the most severe productivity losses (around 16 hours) and shows the strongest link between friction and turnover, at 73%. Work models also shape how that friction is felt: Japan has one of the largest hybrid workforces (35%), while the U.S. and India lead in fully remote work (18%) – a dynamic that can reduce some in-office bottlenecks while exposing every weak link in access, support, and system reliability.
These differences matter because they show that digital friction is shaped as much by work culture and structure as by technology itself. The U.S. leads in remote work adoption, which brings freedom and flexibility, but also exposes every weak point in a company’s digital environment.
What the global comparison makes clear is that reducing friction requires more than repairing individual devices or systems. It calls for a more intentional approach to designing digital workplaces that support people in the flow of their everyday work and protect their productivity at scale. The next phase of digital work will be defined by reliable tools and smart AI that remove friction, so productivity climbs, downtime falls, and employees stay in flow.
By Andrew Hewitt, VP of Strategic Technology at TeamViewer