01
Employees are already building apps for themselves
1 in 4 employees built an app they’ve used for work.
- built an app/prototype
- used it for work
App building is now part of everyday work life. Of employees surveyed, 38% used AI to build an app or working prototype in the past year, and 24% built one they’ve used for work. Most didn’t stop at a single app either: 81% of builders built two or more apps, and 38% built four or more.
Among employees, managers and supervisors build more than individual contributors. Of managers and supervisors, 29% built an app they’ve used for work, compared to 17% of individual contributors and team leads without direct reports.
How much pressure do you feel to use AI?
And while we often think of the pressure to use and build with AI as company-mandated, the urge to build was largely self-driven: 64% of respondents who built an app say their main reason was to save time or reduce manual work. Only nine in 1,970 builders said they did it because of a request or expectation from a manager or colleague.
App building isn’t limited to technical roles, either.
159 of 357
of technical employees
1,082 of 4,820
of nontechnical employees
Among employees outside IT, software engineering, and cybersecurity, 22% built an app they use for work.
Who isn’t building? Among 1,386 respondents who never considered building, 33% said it was outside their responsibilities and 25% didn’t know it was possible.
Manual processes are slowing everyone down.
of employees
of leaders, about work they oversee
We also found that no small portion of work still relies on lo-fi or even analog methods. Despite the glut of SaaS products, nearly half of employees in our survey (47%) estimated that more than 40% of their work still runs on spreadsheets, email, paper, chat, or manual handoffs. The pain is more acute at the leadership level: 55% said more than 40% of the work they oversee runs this way.
Source: AI-Built Internal Apps Survey, Sept. 2026. Operators n=5,177 (Q10); leaders n=527 (Q22). Separate samples; not pooled.
Which work processes, if any, most need a better system in your role today?
Both employees and leaders named requests and approvals, reporting and analysis, and scheduling and coordination as the processes most in need of improvement.
Fewer employees build apps at the largest companies.
1 in 4
at companies under 5,000 employees
1 in 5
at companies with 5,000 or more
At companies under 5,000 employees, about one in four employees built an app they use for work. At companies with 5,000 or more, that drops to about one in five.
Builders are generally focused on small, practical tools.
say their app made the process faster
report fewer errors
report less re-entering or copying of information
Most builders’ latest apps are practical tools for coordinating work and tracking information. They target the same work they say needs better systems. And the majority of those apps (84%) target a process previously handled in spreadsheets, email, chat, and paper.
And the apps work. Three in five builders said their app made the process faster, and about two in five (39%) reported fewer errors and less re-entering or copying of information (38%).
What are employees building to replace?
of apps were built to replace a process run on spreadsheets, email, paper form or chat
Source: AI-Built Internal Apps Survey, Sept. 2026. Base: 1,970 operators (Operator Q20).
02
Teams depend on apps leaders don’t know about
of leaders who found an employee-built app kept it running.
Employees build apps to get out of spreadsheets and email inboxes. But then what? Many of these apps follow the same path. By the time leadership finds out they exist, a team has come to depend on them.
Notably, once leaders find apps, most keep them running. Fewer than 2% shut them down.
Leaders don’t see as much building as they think.
think they know every employee-built app in their org
found one IT or leadership hadn’t known about
Most leaders (70%) are very or extremely confident they know every employee-built app used for work in their area. Yet more than half (53%) said that in the past year, their organization found an app IT or leadership wasn’t aware of.
Did IT or leadership know about the app before it was used?
- Approved in advance35%
- Aware in advance, no formal approval34%
- Learned after use or testing began22%
- Still doesn’t know5%
- Not applicable or not sure3%
Builders tell a different story. Only around a quarter (28%) of builders said that leadership or IT learned about their app after they started using or testing it, or that they still don’t know about it. Meanwhile, about a third (35%) said IT or leadership reviewed and approved their latest app before anyone used or tested it. Another third (34%) said IT or leadership knew about it beforehand, though formal approval wasn’t required or hadn’t finished.
Source: AI-Built Internal Apps Survey, Sept. 2026. Base: 1,970 operators who built an app or working prototype in the past year (Operator Q22, single select). “Learned after use” and “still doesn’t know” total 27.8%.
Leaders under the most pressure find the most surprises.
under high pressure to expand AI use
where pressure is lower
Among leaders who gave a definite answer, 72% of those under high pressure to expand AI use found a previously unknown app, compared with 42% where pressure is lower.
Most apps stay inside one team.
And those teams depend on them.
Most employee-built apps stay small. Nearly three in four builders said 20 or fewer people use their app, and 11% said only they use it. Leaders see the same pattern: 72% of the apps they discovered reached 20 people or fewer. A small share spread further: 6% of builders said their app is used across multiple teams, and 5% said it’s available company-wide.
Small apps can still become critical. Among leaders who discovered an employee-built app, 83% called it important or essential. Without it, work would slow substantially or stop. Nearly two-thirds of those apps (64%) remained in routine or occasional use at the time of the survey.
*Slice percentages are rounded, so 11% and 62% add up to 73%. Unrounded, they total 72%.
- Only the builder11%
- 2–20 people in one team62%
- More than 20 people in one business area14%
- Multiple teams or business areas6%
- Company-wide5%
- Not used yet or not sure2%
Leaders value and keep the apps they find.
When leaders do discover an employee-built app, they rarely shut it down: Fewer than 2% required that their team stop using it. Of leaders whose organization found an app, 44% gave the builder technical or operational help with functionality, security, or integration, and 28% let existing users keep going without major changes. Another 19% limited use while they reviewed risks and requirements, and 6% moved the capability into another approved tool.
of leaders prefer that employees stay involved in building and running apps.
The response fits what leaders say they want. Most leaders (80%) prefer that employees stay involved in building and running apps. The most popular approach, chosen by a third of leaders, is to let the employee lead development with help from IT or specialists.
Ultimately, confidence in employees’ building abilities is high on both sides. 57% of leaders rated employees outside IT or software engineering as very or extremely capable of creating useful AI-built apps. Among builders, 71% said leaders understand their capabilities very or extremely well.
But trust doesn’t keep an app running…
03
Employees need support to take these apps beyond their team
of builders said their company names someone responsible for maintaining and supporting their apps.
Part of the reason apps struggle to scale is that builders and leaders have different priorities. As noted above, 64% of builders build apps mainly to work faster (34%) or reduce manual work (31%). Leaders, however, rated quality or accuracy (57%) and reliability (46%) as the most important measures of an app’s success. Only 32% named time or effort saved.
These views are not contradictory, of course: An app can speed up a task while still needing technical work before more people can rely on it. But if builders aren’t making an effective case to leadership in terms that matter to them, and if leadership isn’t considering an app’s benefits to employees alongside its quality and reliability, worthwhile projects can fail to gain widespread use.
Integration, security, and maintenance stall most apps.
When asked what most limited wider or more reliable use of their latest app, builders most often named integration with business systems and security or compliance review (both 41%), followed by testing and reliability (33%).
Most leaders (57%) require a security or compliance review before an app can be used more widely, yet only 32% of builders have access to someone who can help with one. Leaders also expect apps to connect to business systems, and few builders get help making those connections.
Reliable integration ranks among the top three platform priorities for 44% of leaders, yet only 30% of builders have help connecting their apps.
Integration with business systems
Security or compliance review
Testing and reliability
What limits wider use of employee-built apps?
Nearly half of leaders (47%) named staff time as the most common barrier to wider use of employee-built apps: Engineers and employees lack the hours to finish, secure, and integrate them. Leaders also cited access to organizational data or systems (40%), and only 8% named approval or governance delays. Builders described the same bottleneck from their side: The work itself, led by integration and security review, held them back more than their own time or skill (7%).
Source: AI-Built Internal Apps Survey, Sept. 2026. Builders (n=1,970) described their latest app; leaders (n=527) described their decision area. Respondents could select up to three. Answer options differ slightly between surveys; the chart shows only closely matched options.
Most review costs IT weeks of work.
Some apps do get reviewed for wider use, which creates another bottleneck. Among leaders whose organization reviewed an app, 69% said the review took at least three person-weeks of combined IT and engineering labor, and 35% said six or more.
Source: AI-Built Internal Apps Survey, Sept. 2026. Base: 487 leaders with a reviewed app and known effort (Leader Q30; 10 "not sure" excluded). Person-weeks add effort across people, not elapsed calendar time.
And though reviews consume company resources, they don’t necessarily limit an app’s utility.
Fewer than 1% of reviewed apps were discontinued without a replacement, and 4% were replaced with an existing system. Most kept running in some form: 23% as built, 29% after technical or operational changes, and 31% in limited use while reviewers assessed risks.
Reviews also cost more at bigger companies.
Six or more person-weeks of IT labor
at companies with 5,000 or more employees
at companies under 250
at companies that prohibit app-building
at companies that allow employee building under conditions
Among leaders at companies with 5,000 or more employees, 49% reported six or more person-weeks of IT labor on their latest review, compared with 15% at companies under 250.
Bans don’t make the review work go away. Employees at companies that prohibit app-building still build, and their apps still land in IT’s review queue: 38% of leaders at those companies reported six or more person-weeks of IT labor on their latest review. That’s about the same as at companies that allow employee building under conditions and want employees involved (35%).
Scroll ↓ · Use ← → to page · Print for a PDF · © 2026 Quickbase Inc. All Rights Reserved