--- title: "There’s a Mass Rebellion Against AI in the Workplace" description: "Only nine percent of office workers trust their company's AI tools with \"business-critical\" tasks, a new survey found." date: "2026-04-11" modified: "2026-04-11" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/ai-enterprise-workers-survey" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" --- # There’s a Mass Rebellion Against AI in the Workplace ![A man in a black suit and tie is holding a hammer in his right hand, raised near his shoulder, and standing behind a laptop. The man is smiling with an open mouth. The background features an orange grid pattern with a large red abstract shape behind him. The man and laptop are in black and white, contrasting with the colorful background.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* With consumers [roundly panning]() generative AI slop wherever it's found, tech companies have set their sights on a more captive audience as a [source of revenue](): the world's boardrooms and cubicle farms. But the office, it turns out, is also failing to provide fertile ground for its overtures. A [new survey]() by the SAP-owned software company WalkMe of 3,750 executives and employees found a major discontent growing in large companies across the globe. According to the findings, 54 percent of workers reported avoiding their company's in-house AI tools in order to complete tasks themselves. A full third of workers reported never using AI at all. The survey also identified a massive rift between workers and their bosses when it comes to AI. While 61 percent of executives surveyed said they trust the tech for complex, "business-critical" decisions, only nine percent of workers said the same. A further 88 percent of corporate bigwigs expressed confidence that the AI tools they forced on their workers were adequate — while only 21 percent of workers agreed. That cognitive disconnect isn't just a sentiment issue. The WalkMe survey also found that, though 81 percent of executives think their AI deployments have "significantly improved productivity," their workers are actually wasting eight hours per week cleaning up after AI's messes, which is the equivalent of 51 work days a year. Those findings mark a drastic uptick from [last year's WalkMe survey](), which showed workers were losing 36 days a year dealing with AI friction. "AI didn't deliver," Johns Hopkins economist [Steve Hanke told *Fortune*]() about the findings. "Welcome to the real world. Forget the AI bubble. You know, it didn't deliver. You look at all the surveys and yeah, everybody's using it a little bit, but you dig into it and it hasn't done much." "Productivity, by the way, it was weak," Hanke continued. "If AI delivered, productivity would be way up. You listen to these Silicon Valley guys and they say we're gonna have GDP going to 5 percent \[or\] 6 percent. Productivity is gonna go up to six. It's just not happening." The results are just more fuel for the AI skeptics' already-towering bonfire. In August of last year, an often-cited MIT study found that [95 percent of AI deployments]() in the workplace had failed to generate the expected return on investment. WalkMe's survey suggests that th**e** situation hasn't improved much over the past seven months — a fact lost on executives, but felt by every worker stuck cleaning up the mess. **More on AI:** *[AI Expert Says It’s Time to Stop Freaking Out About AI Taking Our Jobs]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()