Surveys find most workers use AI for basic tasks despite broad workplace access
A new reportby Kristian Kabashi through his Blank Collar research practice found that 87% of workers use artificial intelligence at a beginner level, with just 13% using it for what the report defines as meaningful work, despite widespread adoption of AI tools by companies.
"Your company bought AI, but nobody changed," Kabashi said. "At some level, we've seen this with every major technology shift over the years, but in the case of AI, these results are quite disappointing."
Kabashi previously held transformation roles at Dentsu and Havas before founding Numarics, a Swiss financial technology company. He said employees are not held back by a lack of prompting skill, but by uncertainty over which tasks to delegate to AI.
"They get stuck one step earlier, on a blank question, which is 'What do I even point this at?'" he said. "Nothing in the actual job comes pre-labeled, give this to AI."
Kabashi called the pattern a "use case desert." He said the larger issue, in his view, is a lack of leadership direction rather than a deficit in employee skill.
"I don't want to point fingers," he said. "Everyone better get busy pretty soon, because the companies that figure this out — who can rise above 13% meaningful AI use — are going to be strong competitive performers."
Independent surveys show similar pattern
IBM's 2026 Global CEO Study polled thousands of CEOs across industries and geographies. It found that 85% of employees have the capability to use AI, while only 25% use it regularly – a 61-point gap. The study attributed the gap to unclear use cases, training disconnected from daily workflows, tools that don't fit existing systems, and a lack of visible AI use by leadership.
A separate Gallup survey of 23,717 employees, conducted in February, found that only about one in 10 employees at AI-adopting organisations strongly agree that AI has transformed how work gets done at their company. The benefits of workplace AI use appear concentrated at the level of individual tasks rather than broader workplace systems.
Gallup cited a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper covering firm-level data in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. The paper found that chief executives report minimal AI effect on productivity over the past three years.
