Half of US workers now use AI

Half of U.S. workers now use artificial intelligence on the job, according to Gallup’s latest workplace survey. (gallup.com) Gallup said 50% of U.S. employees used artificial intelligence at work at least a few times a year in its Feb. 4-19, 2026, survey of 23,717 workers. About 3 in 10 were frequent users, meaning daily or a few times a week, and about 2 in 10 were infrequent users. (gallup.com) (abcnews.com) The same polling found that about 4 in 10 workers said their organization had adopted artificial intelligence tools to improve how the business operates. About two-thirds of workers in those organizations said the tools had an extremely or somewhat positive effect on their own productivity and efficiency. (abcnews.com) (techxplore.com) Gallup’s companion analysis said access alone does not determine use. Employees were more likely to use artificial intelligence when managers supported it, when the tools fit daily workflows, and when workers could see a concrete benefit. (gallup.com) The split inside companies is widening by role. Gallup reported earlier this year that in the fourth quarter of 2025, 69% of leaders used artificial intelligence to some extent, compared with 55% of managers and 40% of individual contributors. (hrexecutive.com) Frequent use is also concentrated higher up the org chart. In Gallup’s fourth-quarter 2025 data, 44% of leaders used artificial intelligence at least a few times a week, compared with 30% of managers and 11% of individual contributors. (hrexecutive.com) The gains Gallup measured were mostly personal, not companywide. Workers who use artificial intelligence often said it helps them write, summarize, search and draft faster, but Gallup said the evidence of fully transformational changes in how organizations operate remains limited. (gallup.com) (wusf.org) Gallup also found more disruption in workplaces that have adopted artificial intelligence. In those organizations, 27% of employees said their workplace had changed in disruptive ways to a large or very large extent in the past year, versus 17% in organizations that had not adopted it. (europesays.com) Those workplaces were more likely to report both hiring and cuts. Gallup’s analysis said employees at artificial-intelligence-adopting organizations more often reported workforce expansion, 34% versus 28%, and workforce reductions, 23% versus 16%, than employees at organizations without adoption. (europesays.com) The holdouts are not just waiting for logins. Associated Press reporting on the Gallup data said many nonusers preferred to work without artificial intelligence, objected to it on ethical grounds, or worried about privacy and job loss. (abcnews.com) The new benchmark leaves U.S. offices in an in-between phase: artificial intelligence is now common enough that half the workforce touches it, but Gallup’s data still show the biggest effects in who uses it, who benefits from it and who feels disrupted by it. (gallup.com)