Daily AI Users Stand Alone in Positive Job Security Outlook

A recent survey conducted by CNBC and SurveyMonkey, released Monday, indicates that employees and students preparing to enter the job market acknowledge the time-saving benefits of artificial intelligence, yet many harbor concerns about the technology's impact on their job security. The organizations polled 1,686 workers and students across the U.S. during July.

The frequency of AI usage among workers remains uneven: 30% report using it daily, 34% use it a few times per week, and 37% say they never use it. Notably, only those who engage with AI on a daily basis express a positive view of its effect on their job security. Respondents who use AI less frequently—a few times a week or less—indicate that the technology makes them feel less secure. This pattern extends to broader market sentiment, as daily users were the sole group to state that AI makes them feel optimistic about the overall job market.

“Even when replacement is not the near-term reality, employees worry that AI will reduce the value of their expertise or change the work they are known for,” Adam Preset, VP analyst at Gartner, told CIO Dive in an email.

Dive Insight:

Workers report time savings and increased confidence in their skills while using AI, but a lack of official policy and inconsistent guidance regarding who should use the technology holds them back from full engagement.

Tech hiring delivered mixed results in July. While unemployment continued to dip, the labor market saw a push toward AI-savvy workers as automation finds its way deeper into core operations, according to a separate CIO Dive report.

More than half of employers surveyed did not have an official AI policy in place at work, and very few organizations took a hard stance against using the technology or banned it outright, per the CNBC and SurveyMonkey findings.

This lack of clarity has sown distrust among employees, who are keeping the technology at arm's length because they have not been properly introduced to it or trained on its use, Preset said. Employees often feel they could be held accountable for a tool's mistakes and perceive AI as something being done to them, rather than with them, he added.

“Distrust is a reasonable response to how AI is being introduced in many organizations,” Preset said. “AI tools can sound confident even when they are wrong and employees may not know what data a system is using or how it decides.”

Although organizations have invested heavily in AI, there is often a significant gap between CIOs' expectations of their workforce and the reality of their abilities, because employees have not been given sufficient—or any—training for how to use AI at work, J.P. Gownder, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, said in an email.

“Employers have also forced AI tools onto employees without articulating what benefits AI might have to the employees themselves, as opposed to the benefits purely accruing to the company,” Gownder said.

CIOs who scale up adoption by risk, starting with tasks that employees already feel comfortable with—such as drafting and research—will see more success with adoption, according to Nick Patience, VP and practice lead of AI platforms at The Futurum Group, in an email. Once employees feel comfortable with those workflows, an organization can then push toward higher-stakes decisions.

How leadership addresses AI use can help make employees more comfortable and less afraid of its potential negative impact on their jobs. Many organizations are currently offering mixed messaging—use it, but not too much; find ROI, but don't tokenmaxx, Preset observed.

“It's an absolutely new technology to them and they're being asked to find the Goldilocks zone of usage and value in short order, but still do their day jobs,” Preset said.