NEWS
Almost half of UK workers say AI is causing a tradeoff between speed and quality of work
AI is helping UK workers move faster, but new research from Atlassian suggests that businesses are yet to solve the harder productivity challenge of helping teams work better together.
According to Atlassian’ s global State of Teams 2026 research, featuring insights from 2,000 + UK knowledge workers and 170 + global Fortune 1000 executives, 84 % of UK knowledge workers say they now use AI at work, and among those using it, 71 % say AI makes them work faster. But while AI is accelerating individual output, the systems around that work are not keeping pace. In fact, 70 % of UK workers rate their organisation’ s processes and workflows for effectively using AI as‘ okay’ or‘ poor’, suggesting many businesses are still layering AI onto ways of working that were not designed for it.
The result is that AI is helping people produce more, but teams are still struggling to turn that extra output into co-ordinated progress.
UK workers also point to collaboration barriers that are slowing them down. More than a third( 83 %) say unclear or conflicting goals and priorities get in the way of effective collaboration between teams, while 79 % aren’ t aware of what other teams are working on. And 86 % say there is no time or capacity to co-ordinate because everyone is in execution mode. And this has a big impact: the research found that the inefficiencies caused by disconnected workflows cost Fortune 500 companies an estimated US $ 161 billion annually.
UK remains Europe’ s leading M & A market as investors favour selective add-on deals over large-scale acquisitions
Europe’ s M & A and private equity market has entered 2026 with significantly larger and more selective transactions while regaining momentum. According to a new report by Drooms, a leading European due diligence platform, and PitchBook, a private capital financial research platform, the UK continues to strengthen its position as Europe’ s dominant private markets hub, despite growing geopolitical and regulatory complexity across the region.
The report, Executing in an Era of Market Complexities: European M & A and PE Trends and the Technology Imperative, highlights how capital is increasingly focused on fewer but larger transactions, while investors simultaneously favour lower-risk add-on acquisitions and buy-and-build strategies.
According to the report, the number of European PE transactions reached a near-decade-high of 8,187 deals in 2025. M & A activity also remained elevated at 18,485 transactions. At the same time, 2026 is already seeing significantly larger and more selective transactions: the average PE deal size in Europe has risen to € 359.7 million year-to-date, up from € 289 million in full-year 2025, while the average M & A deal size now stands at € 546.3 million.
The UK generated € 292.3 billion in M & A deal value and € 169.4 billion in PE deal value in 2025 – the highest levels of any European market analysed in the report. With 4,545 M & A deals and 1,857 PE transactions, the UK remains Europe’ s most active private capital ecosystem by both value and volume.
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