(TNND) — Roughly four in 10 workers say they use artificial intelligence on the job, while smaller shares report being frequent users, according to a new Gallup report.
AI usage has seen a steady increase over the last couple of years, but the pace of adoption in the workplace might be seen as a disappointment, given the “narrative environment that has been saturated in big claims,” said Brookings Metro senior fellow Mark Muro.
But Muro, who researches the digital economy, said the AI workplace rollout is moving fast by historical standards.
“I do think that there are speed limits on adoption,” Muro said. “Adoption of AI is not just putting a new app on your phone. It is utilizing it to achieve the kind of pick-and-shovel gains of process change in organizations. And that’s where I think that we have to deal with some outsized claims that are just beyond the speed limit of adopting technology.”
The Gallup report, published Wednesday, showed 41% of private-sector employees say they use AI at least occasionally, including 25% who use it frequently.
Gallup reported similar figures among public-sector employees: 43% overall, including 21% who are regular users.
Both private- and public-sector employees have seen steady increases in on-the-job AI use. Usage among private-sector employees, for example, is up from 26% in early 2024 and 37% in early 2025.
Anton Dahbura, an AI expert and the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, said the pace of AI adoption is right on track with his expectations.
And he said the Gallup survey data probably underreports the extent of AI use in the workplace.
“AI is quickly becoming embedded in business applications,” Dahbura said. “So, for one thing, people may not even realize, workers may not even realize, that they’re using AI.”
AI is not just ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, Dahbura said.
And the next evolution of workplace AI will see the tools increasingly integrated into organizational workflows and interfaces, he said.
“It’s the new software, basically. It’s the new software,” Dahbura said. “We’re doing things in software that we couldn’t do before. So, it’s not surprising that it’s going to be everywhere that software can be.”
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Muro said private-sector AI adoption is needed if the promises of productivity and economic gains from the technology are to be realized.
But he said public-sector adoption can improve processes and support private-sector economic gains.
Organizational and managerial support is key to successful AI workplace adoption, both Muro and the Gallup report said.
“Individual productivity is one thing,” Muro said. “What matters really more is organizational productivity. … That’s where we’re going to get major productivity gains.”
And that requires training, supervision and organizational strategy.
It’s also why Muro said he remains somewhat skeptical of super-fast AI adoption.
Dahbura said uptake can also be slowed by security and privacy concerns and the tendency of AI models to hallucinate information.
“It’s kind of buyer beware,” Dahbura said. “And it can be a fantastic tool, but it has its risks and limitations.”
Gallup said its surveys show that managerial support is strongly associated with whether AI use becomes routine rather than occasional.
Private-sector employees who said their managers actively support their team’s use of AI reported being frequent users by a 36-point higher margin.
Gallup said company leaders must incorporate clear AI strategies and explain why AI is useful, where it fits in day-to-day work, and how employees should use it responsibly.
Gallup senior researcher Christos Makridis, who wrote the new report, called managers “the decisive link between strategy and behavior” when it comes to AI usage.
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