More workers are using AI, but don’t know if their employers are, too – why that’s a problem

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• A recent Gallup poll asked about employees’ use of AI at work.
• Nearly half said they use it at least a few times a year.
• There were some big differences between industries.

The use of AI tools among individual employees is on the rise, according to new data from Gallup — even though many of those workers have no idea whether the technology is being used across their organizations.

Published on Sunday and based on an August survey of over 23,000 US adults, the study found that nearly half (45%) of all respondents now use AI at work at least a few times a year, an increase of 5% from the same time last year. The percentage of workers who report using the technology on a weekly basis also increased (to 23% from 19%), as did those who use it every day (though this increase was less pronounced, to 10% from 8%). 

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Even more surprisingly, nearly one-quarter (23%) said they didn’t know if their employer had adopted AI to boost productivity or otherwise improve organizational workflows.

The fact that the number of workers using AI at work is roughly equal to the number that don’t know whether the technology is being used across their organizations reveals a stark communication gap between employers and employees regarding AI strategy. 

More workers than ever are now using AI to assist with various tasks, but in many cases, this is taking place independently of any broader, top-down AI implementation effort. 

The new Gallup data is the latest evidence to reveal that, in the age of AI, the best strategy may be to give employees the freedom to experiment with and use the tools that best fit their particular roles — but at the same time, employers should implement some measure of oversight and education. 

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In other words, it’s a delicate dance between control and flexibility.

Balancing a top-down with a bottom-up approach to AI

Tech developers have been promoting new AI tools, such as agents, as systems that can quickly boost organizational output and efficiency. In practice, however, things are not so simple.

Previous research has shown that using AI at work can take a significant psychological toll on workers, with some expriencing reduced motivation in their roles and even burnout. A recent study by the National Cybersecurity Alliance found that many people who use AI at work are doing so without any safety training, raising a serious risk that they may accidentally leak sensitive organizational data.

Employers face a big challenge: How do they adopt AI in a manner that benefits individual employees and their organizations as a whole?

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A big clue arrived in August, when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a report that found the overwhelming majority (95%) of business applications of AI have failed. One of the key takeaways from that study was that the small number of businesses that achieved ROI with their AI efforts did so through a bottom-up approach — that is, letting employees determine what works best for them, rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all solution.

This followed earlier research, which found that professionals were more likely to use AI in the workplace when they receive training and support from company leaders.

The emerging paradigm of AI in the workplace is therefore more nuanced than the neat picture that’s typically painted by tech marketing. At this early stage of AI deployment, the data suggests that a measure of guidance and oversight can go a long way, but also that this shouldn’t be enacted to the point that it suffocates the freedom of individual employees to experiment with the technology themselves.

Other key findings from the Gallup poll

While nearly one-quarter of respondents to the Gallup survey said they didn’t know if their employer had adopted AI, even more (40%) stated that they hadn’t. That’s also striking, since it shows that the frontier of AI adoption is unfolding not on the executive level, but at the employee level. It’s possible that this could inform the marketing efforts of tech companies moving forward: Perhaps it’s more fruitful to try to sell directly to workers than to company leaders.

There were also some important differences between industries. The majority of respondents working in tech, finance, and professional services all said they use AI at least a few times a year at work (76%, 58%, and 57%, respectively), while far fewer in manufacturing, healthcare, and retail reported the same rate of use (38%, 37%, 33%).

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This adds an additional layer of complexity for employers, as their adoption, training, and oversight strategies should depend largely on their industry, which in turn means there’s no single, industry-agnostic roadmap for them to follow. 

In fact, just as it could be detrimental to over-enforce top-down control of employees’ use of AI, it could be counterproductive to try to follow another industry’s strategy for adopting the technology.