Microsoft: Every day an average worker receives 117 emails

Every day, the average worker receives 117 emails, often read in less than 60 seconds. Globally, the number of messages per person has increased by 6%, with increases of more than 20% in regions such as Central Europe. These are the data from the latest Work Trend Index 2025 by Microsoft, which periodically analyzes the transformations in the world of work: it reveals how technology has created an "infinite workday" while looking at the use of artificial intelligence.

According to the study, which used anonymized data related to the company's products, 40% of Microsoft 365 users are online at 6 a.m. By 8 a.m., Teams surpasses email as the primary communication channel, processing an average of 153 messages on a weekday. Productivity time slots (9-11 a.m. and 1-3 p.m.) are compromised by an overload of meetings that take up about 50% of the time.

"Employees using Microsoft 365 are interrupted by a meeting, email or notification every two minutes on average," it says. "This makes work chaotic and fragmented for nearly half of employees (48%) and more than half of leaders (52%)."

Complicating matters is evidence that 57% of meetings are arranged at the last minute, with work extending beyond standard hours and into weekends.

An example of how this situation can be reduced is represented by frontier companies, made up of human personnel and artificial intelligence. Employees become 'agent bosses', capable of using specialized AI to automate their operations, freeing themselves from low-value activities. "In this way, precious time is recovered to optimize work", concludes the company.