North West businesses are haemorrhaging £46 billion a year due to constant workplace interruptions, according to a new analysis by Nasstar, a leading UK technology company.

The research reveals that a typical office worker in the North West faces some kind of disruption or interruption every four minutes during normal work hours, which equates to 120 interruptions each day from ad hoc meetings, emails, and chats that are fragmenting focus and decimating business productivity.

But while standard generative AI tools like ChatGPT only risk adding to this cognitive overload, analysis by Nasstar suggests that Microsoft’s agentic AI platform, Copilot Studio, just might be the solution. 

“The data speaks for itself: businesses in the North West are facing a productivity crisis on an unprecedented scale, collectively losing over £46 billion a year not because of distractions outside of work but because the tools we use within the workplace are becoming increasingly noisy and distracting,” said Sean Morris, Chief Technology Officer at Nasstar. “But the solution isn’t to just abandon email or Microsoft Teams, or implement a company-wide policy that bans ad hoc meetings.

“The real answer involves getting those workplace tools that we’re already using every day to work for us instead of against us… and for that we need to embrace intelligent automation in our day-to-day work.”

The scale of the productivity crisis for North West businesses

Nasstar dug into Microsoft’s Work Trend Index data to reveal just how much workplace interruptions are undermining business productivity in the North West of England:

  • At least 120 interruptions per day: Microsoft’s research shows office workers are interrupted an average of every 2 minutes during core work hours. For their own UK cost analysis, Nasstar used a more conservative estimate of one interruption every 4 minutes (120 per day), meaning the true productivity cost to North West businesses could potentially be even higher than this £46 billion a year estimate. 

  • 60% of meetings are unplanned: Ad hoc meetings can dramatically disrupt workflows and undermine focus.

  • 58 after-hours messages: Daily communications outside the normal 9 to 5 have increased by 15% year-on-year, according to Microsoft’s Work Trend data.

The pounds-and-pence cost for the North West: £46 billion a year

Nasstar’s analysis indicates that these constant workplace interruptions result in a 25% drop in business productivity across the North West’s office-based roles.

To put the scale of that lost productivity into context, it’s:

  • More than the annual GDP of Liverpool, Preston, and Lancaster combined: Liverpool, Preston, and Lancaster have a combined annual GDP of £28.15 billion. 

  • Like a million office workers being paid to do nothing: At an average annual salary of £41,000, the North West’s £46 billion in lost productivity equates to more than 1 million office workers being paid to do nothing all year round. 

“To put the scale of that lost productivity into context, it amounts to more than the annual GDP of Monaco, the Maldives, and Malta… combined,” said Sean Morris, Nasstar’s CTO.

“But it’s important to remember that we’re not talking about frivolous distractions that companies can easily block, like employees scrolling on Facebook or watching videos on TikTok. These workplace interruptions come from legitimate work communications, and they often arise because of requests that are essential, decisions that need to be made, or information that is required by someone else in the company. 

“North West businesses aren’t losing £46 billion a year because people are slacking off… they’re losing it because our current workplace tools are fundamentally broken, and without agents it’s likely that generative AI will just add to the noise.”

Killing the productivity killer: The “agentic” advantage

While standard AI chatbots and generative AI models might seem like solutions to this productivity crisis, they risk creating more digital noise for employees. 

By contrast, Microsoft Copilot Studio leverages AI agents to complete tasks autonomously rather than simply spitting out content.

“The real breakthrough with Copilot Studio is that it doesn’t just understand what you’re asking, it actually does something about it,” says Ash Ward, Comms Capability Lead at Nasstar. “Instead of generating yet another email or calendar entry, these agents can get to the root of the problem, resolving what might once have taken five emails, a few Teams messages, and half an hour of back-and-forth.” 

How agentic AI could help North West businesses save billions

With over 230,000 organisations already creating AI agents through Copilot Studio, the technology has now moved far beyond experimentation, towards practical business use cases. For North West businesses facing mounting productivity pressures, the question now isn’t whether to adopt AI agents, but how quickly they can implement them effectively.

As the data makes clear, North West businesses can’t afford to wait. The productivity killer is real, it’s expensive, and it’s getting worse.