- About 81% of US workers are "non-AI users," a Pew Research Center survey said.
- Tech giants are betting hundreds of billions of dollars on businesses increasing their AI adoption.
- Over half of those surveyed said they were more worried than hopeful about AI's long-term impact.
Tech giants are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI, promising it will transform the workplace. However, a new survey suggests that most American workers aren't yet using it.
While about one in six workers use AI to do at least some of their jobs, the remainder were considered to be "non-AI users," a Pew Research Center survey published Tuesday said.
The non-AI user group is broken down by 63% of respondents who rarely or never use AI in their jobs, and 17% who have not heard of AI use in the workplace.
The research, which surveyed 5,273 employed US adults in October, suggests that for all the hype around AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, tech giants still have some persuading to do to ensure their massive bets pay off.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta are collectively planning to spend more than $320 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in 2025. They are doing so on the premise that business demand for AI tools will continue to grow, requiring more chips and data centers to power those services.
Google has made AI a central part of its business strategy, integrating tools like Gemini Advanced and NotebookLM into its Workspace enterprise plans. More than 100,000 customers have already adopted Google's AI tools, the company said in January.
Microsoft is making a similarly aggressive push with its Copilot AI assistant. However, Copilot has faced challenges. Last year, Business Insider reported that the reviews of Copilot — both inside and outside Microsoft — indicate that the new product is struggling to live up to the hype.
OpenAI kicked off the AI boom in late 2022 with ChatGPT, its chatbot that captured the attention of businesses and consumers alike. However, the Pew Research Center survey said that only about one in 10 workers use AI chatbots every day or a few times a week in their jobs.
One reason for the seemingly slow adoption of AI tools could be the lack of an integration strategy among businesses, said Doug Winter, the CEO and founder of Seismic, the sales software company.
"There's a constant stream of new AI tools promising to revolutionize the workplace," Winter told BI. "Many businesses rush to adopt them without clear integration strategies. This applies pressure on employees to quickly adapt and utilize multiple new technologies, often leading to tool fatigue."
The Pew survey also asked employees how they thought AI would affect the job market in the coming years. More than half — 52% — of those surveyed said they were more worried than hopeful about AI's long-term impact on the workplace.
