Half of employees say they rely too heavily on artificial intelligence at work. Nearly four in 10 believe the technology is eroding their skills and making them less intelligent, according to a global survey released by GoTo.
The numbers come from The Pulse of Work in 2026: Opportunity, Risk, and Responsibility in an AI-Driven Workplace, the company’s second annual report. GoTo worked with research firm Workplace Intelligence to survey 2,500 people—1,250 full-time knowledge workers and 1,250 IT decision-makers—between November 2025 and January 2026. The findings landed on May 19, 2026.
Fifty percent of employees reported over-relying on AI tools. Thirty percent said they feel they cannot function without them. Thirty-nine percent said the dependence is weakening their skills and intelligence. The effect hits Gen Z harder. Forty-six percent of those younger workers reported that relying too much on AI is making them less intelligent.
The same survey showed real productivity gains. Employees estimated AI saves them more than two hours a day on average. GoTo CEO Rich Veldran pointed to what is still left on the table.
“Employees are spending an estimated 2.6 hours every day on tasks that AI could handle, and in the U.S. alone, that translates to more than $2.9 trillion in potential efficiency gains annually,”
he said in the company announcement.
Veldran called the results a paradox.
“The opportunity in front of us with AI is enormous,”
he said.
“Yet 85 percent of employees admit they’re not using AI to its full potential, and 86 percent say they’re not very familiar with AI’s practical applications for their role. Organizations must invest in the right enablement, resources, and guardrails so employees can close that gap. The goal isn’t just smarter technology; it’s a smarter, more empowered workforce.”
Nearly three in 10 employees said AI is doing their job better than they can. Twenty-eight percent reported trusting AI more than their own judgment. Forty-one percent of all employees, and half of Gen Z respondents, believed relying on AI too much would hurt their long-term career prospects.
Misuse has climbed. Seventy percent of employees admitted using AI for sensitive or high-stakes tasks, up from 54 percent the year before. Those tasks covered legal or compliance work, jobs that require emotional intelligence, safety-related duties, high-stakes strategic decisions, ethical or sensitive personnel actions, and handling confidential information.
Forty-three percent said they had used AI-generated content even when they suspected it was low quality or potentially inaccurate. Sixty-six percent reported that reviewing other people’s AI outputs created more work for them. One in four IT leaders said AI mistakes had already hurt customers or clients.
Governance has not kept pace with adoption. Ninety-eight percent of IT leaders said their company uses AI. Fewer than half reported having an AI policy. Eight in 10 employees and 60 percent of IT leaders said most workers are not being trained properly. Sixty-five percent of employees said their employers are failing to equip them with the human skills they will need as AI takes over more work.
Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, put the risk in plain terms.
“If you can’t explain, defend, or redo the work AI produced without the tool, you’ve crossed from augmentation into dependency,”
he said. The skills that matter most going forward, he added, are the human ones—creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and leadership—plus the judgment to know when to trust an AI output and when to override it.
Sixty percent of employees said they felt expected to use AI tools to boost productivity. That pressure lands hardest on younger workers. Employees ranked three abilities as most important: checking AI work for accuracy and bias, knowing when to trust or question outputs, and applying human judgment alongside the technology.
Veldran has said the problem is especially sharp for early-career employees still building judgment and problem-solving skills.
“It’s only in the rearview mirror that folks will look back and say, ‘You know what, I’m actually relying on it too much. Perhaps I’m not learning some of the things I need to learn,’”
he said.
The report finds AI has moved from experiment to everyday reality. Support for more spending remains strong. More than nine in 10 employees and IT leaders said their company should maintain or increase its AI investment. The data also shows a clear gap between short-term speed and longer-term capability.
