65% of Employees Excited to Use AI at Work

Sixty-five percent of employees say they are excited about using AI at work, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc., a leading business and technology insights company.

Despite this enthusiasm, many C-suite executives attribute AI’s limited business impact to employee resistance. Gartner’s findings suggest otherwise. A July 2025 survey of 2,986 employees revealed that 37% do not use AI tools—even when they have access—simply because their coworkers are not using them. Gartner research indicates that the real challenge often stems from executive urgency, which leads to rushed AI implementations without sufficient consideration of workforce implications.

“Often, AI deployment decisions are made without any involvement from HR,” said Eser Rizagolu, Senior Director and Analyst in the Gartner HR Practice. “This results in poor adoption, misaligned expectations between employees and executives, and ultimately, organizations failing to realize meaningful business value from AI.”

To maximize returns on AI investments, Gartner recommends that CHROs take three key actions to reimagine their organization’s AI deployment strategy:

• Reframe AI governance to address not only compliance and information security, but also the impact of AI on the employee experience.
• Identify digitally curious and collaborative employees to pilot AI tools and serve as early adopters for AI learning initiatives.
• Segment employees by their attitudes and behaviors toward AI to design personalized learning journeys that foster an AI-forward workplace culture.

Co-Lead AI Governance to Build Employee Trust and Stress-Test the Environment

When HR is excluded from AI strategy discussions, CHROs are forced into a reactive role, managing the downstream effects of AI deployment. To prevent negative impacts on the employee experience, CHROs should collaborate closely with digital workplace, security, legal, and business leaders as part of enterprise-wide AI governance teams.

“To demonstrate HR’s critical role in AI governance, CHROs should frame AI as a workforce issue,” Rizagolu explained. “They must communicate HR’s ability to identify risks while partnering with the business to ensure AI tools enhance productivity, engagement, and retention.”

Demonstrate AI’s Value by Focusing on Collaborative Work

As governance teams stress-test AI solutions, CHROs should work with HR business partners and business leaders to identify employees best suited to pilot AI tools during the proof-of-value (POV) stage. Ideal candidates are those who are both digitally curious and highly collaborative.

Gartner identifies four employee archetypes that stand to gain the most from AI augmentation:

• Consumer: Absorbs large volumes of data and synthesizes insights to support informed decision-making.
• Communicator: Translates information into messages, offers, updates, and actions.
• Coordinator: Organizes and prioritizes information from multiple sources to streamline workflows.
• Creator: Converts data and information from one format to another.

Once CHROs form pilot cohorts that blend these archetypes, they should enable collaboration and encourage the use of AI to enhance both individual performance and team-based outcomes.

Assess and Classify Adoption Personas to Scale AI Impact

After AI use cases have been thoroughly stress-tested and approved by governance teams, they can be scaled across the organization. At this stage, CHROs should survey POV participants and analyze AI usage data to evaluate whether AI improves the quality and timeliness of deliverables compared with work performed without AI.

“To drive high adoption and effective use of AI solutions, CHROs and their teams must segment employees based on adoption attitudes and behaviors, using both survey feedback and usage data,” Rizagolu said.

This structured, workforce-centric approach enables organizations to move beyond experimentation and achieve sustainable, enterprise-wide value from AI.