U.S. Workers Are More Worried Than Hopeful About Future AI Use in the Workplace

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About a third of workers say AI use will lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long run; chatbots seen as more helpful for speeding up work than improving its quality

How we did this

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand how American workers see the use of AI in the workplace and their own experiences with AI in their jobs.

For this analysis, we surveyed 5,273 U.S. adults who are employed part time or full time and who have only one job or have more than one but consider one of them to be their primary job. The survey was conducted Oct. 7-13, 2024.

Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. The survey was conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this report, the topline and the survey methodology.

Terminology

References to workers include those who are employed part time or full time and who have only one job or have more than one but consider one of them to be their primary job.

References to college graduates or people with a college degree comprise those with a bachelor’s degree or more education. “Some college” includes those with an associate degree and those who attended college but did not obtain a degree. “High school” refers to those who have a high school diploma or its equivalent, such as a General Educational Development (GED) certificate.

“Middle income” is defined here as two-thirds to double the median annual family income for panelists on the American Trends Panel. “Lower income” falls below that range; “upper income” falls above it. Read the methodology for more details.

Artificial intelligence is not new to the workplace, but the debut of ChatGPT just over two years ago ushered in an era of rapid expansion. American workers have mixed feelings about how this technology will affect jobs in the future.

About half of workers (52%) say they’re worried about the future impact of AI use in the workplace, and 32% think it will lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long run, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

And while 36% of workers also say they feel hopeful about how AI may be used in the workplace in the future, a similar share (33%) say they feel overwhelmed.

About one-in-six workers (16%) say at least some of their work is currently done with AI. And an additional 25% say, while they’re not using it much now, at least some of their work can be done with AI. These shares are significantly higher among young workers and workers with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The survey, conducted Oct. 7-13 among 5,273 employed U.S. adults, explores how workers see the use of AI in the workplace overall, as well as their own experience with AI in their jobs.

Key findings

Few workers think AI use in the workplace will improve their job prospects in the long run.

• Only 6% of workers say workplace AI use will lead to more job opportunities for them in the long run. About a third (32%) say it will lead to fewer opportunities for them, and 31% say it will not make much difference. Some 17% of workers have not heard about the use of AI in the workplace.
• Workers with lower and middle incomes are more likely than those with upper incomes to say workplace AI use will lead to fewer job opportunities for them. In turn, upper-income workers are more likely to say workplace AI use won’t make much difference in their job opportunities.
• Across industries, workers in information and technology and those working in banking, finance, accounting, real estate or insurance are among the most likely to say that the use of AI will lead to more job opportunities for them in the long run.

Most American workers (63%) say they don’t use AI much or at all in their job.

• About one-in-six workers (16%) are AI users, meaning at least some of their work is done with AI.
• Another 81% of workers could be considered non-AI users. This includes 63% who say they don’t use AI much or at all in their job and 17% who have not heard of AI use in the workplace.
• AI users are generally younger: 73% are under 50, compared with 65% among non-AI users. And about half of AI users (51%) have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 39% of non-AI users.
• Among non-AI users, 31% say at least some of their work can be done with AI. The share saying this is larger among workers younger than 50 and among those with at least a bachelor’s degree.

About one-in-ten workers say they use AI chatbots – such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot – at work every day or a few times a week; 7% use them a few times a month.

• A majority of workers (55%) say they rarely or never use them.
• Across age groups, workers ages 18 to 29 are the most likely to use AI chatbots at work at least a few times a month (23% vs. 17% or less among older age groups).
• Among those who’ve used AI chatbots for work, the most common uses are research (57% have used them for this), editing written content (52%) and drafting written content (47%).

Workers who have used AI chatbots are more likely to find them helpful in speeding up their work than in improving its quality.

• Four-in-ten workers who have used AI chatbots for work say these tools have been extremely or very helpful in allowing them to do things more quickly. A smaller share (29%) say they have been equally helpful in improving the quality of their work.
• Workers ages 18 to 49 are more likely than those ages 50 and older to find AI chatbots highly helpful in allowing them to do things more quickly (44% vs. 29%) and in improving the quality of their work (31% vs. 23%).