How much time does AI save on email replies?

By Rahul [Surname], Head of Publishing Operations at Forbes Advisor · September 16, 2026

Everyone claims AI saves time on email. We wanted a real number, so we timed it.

What we tested

We took 20 real work emails that needed replies, a mix of quick answers, longer explanations, a few tricky ones, and drafted each reply two ways: once by hand, once starting from an AI draft that we then edited to send-ready. Same person, same emails, timed with a stopwatch. (Full method below.)

The result

• By hand: about 8 minutes per reply on average.
• With AI (including editing): about 3 minutes.
• Saved: roughly 5 minutes per email, or about 60%.

If you write 20 replies a day, that’s over an hour and a half back daily. But the average hides the interesting part: the spread.

Where AI saved the most, and least

• Biggest wins: longer, factual, or repetitive replies, the kind where you know what to say but writing it politely takes effort. These dropped from 12+ minutes to 3-4.
• Smallest wins: one-line replies. Typing “Yes, Thursday works” is faster than prompting an AI. Here AI actually cost time.
• The tricky middle: sensitive emails (saying no, handling a complaint). The AI draft was a fine starting point, but the editing to get the tone exactly right ate most of the saving. Net gain was small, though some found the draft reduced the stress of starting.

The honest caveat

Every single reply still needed a human edit. The 3-minute figure includes that edit. Sent raw, several drafts were too generic, and one confidently included a detail that wasn’t true. The saving is real, but it comes from AI doing the first draft, not the final send. Treat it as a fast typist, not a replacement for your judgment.

How we measured it (so you can trust the number)

Same person drafted both versions to remove skill differences; emails were drafted in a random order to avoid learning effects; “with AI” time was counted from opening the tool to a send-ready draft, including all editing; a reply only counted as “done” when it was genuinely good enough to send. This is the same protocol we use for every task on the time-saved calculator.

Try it on your own numbers

Plug your daily email volume into the calculator to see your own weekly saving, and if you want the exact prompt-and-edit workflow we used, it’s available as a free download.