AI is improving work and daily life for many users, but significant benefits remain limited. A study by Charter found that 42.7% said AI made their work and life at least somewhat better, while only 10.5% reported major improvements.
The findings point to employee control, manager support and practical training as important factors in whether AI improves the working experience.
Daily Use Matters More Than Building AI Agents
Workers who used AI daily were twice as likely to benefit from it as those who used it weekly. The study also found that having influence over how AI fits into a person’s job was the strongest factor associated with benefiting from the technology.
Hands-on training was another important factor. Respondents were 2.3 times more likely to value practical training than time to experiment independently, yet fewer than 40% said they received hands-on training. Only 50.5% said their employer provided AI policies and guidelines.
Managers Overestimate Their Support
Eleven of the 14 factors most closely associated with employees benefiting from AI involved managers. However, managers were twice as likely as employees to say they were taking recommended steps to support their teams as employees were to recall those actions.
The gap suggests that managerial support needs to be visible to workers, rather than simply intended.
Executives Trust AI More Than Their Own Judgment
Executives were 2.5 times as likely as employees to trust AI outputs, twice as likely to trust AI over their own judgment, and more than twice as likely to trust AI over a knowledgeable colleague.
Meanwhile, 36% of AI users said they had hidden their AI use from a manager, colleague or client. The most common reason was fear of being viewed as incompetent. Managers were 1.6 times as likely as employees to conceal their AI use, and hiding AI use was the factor most associated with increased odds of burnout in the study.
Workers Are More Pessimistic About AI
Employees were less optimistic than executives about AI’s effects on society and their organizations. Some 41% of employees were pessimistic about AI’s societal impact, compared with 17% of executives. Meanwhile, 56% of employees were at least somewhat optimistic about AI’s impact on their organization, compared with 85% of executives.
The results show a gap between how leaders and employees experience AI at work, with access to the technology alone doing little to guarantee meaningful benefits.
