Study: AI fear is distorting workplace behavior

A new study from GCheck found that 63% of 1,500 workers surveyed exaggerate their AI skills due to fears about job security, with the figure rising to 80% among Gen Z employees. Despite this overstatement, 81% of respondents admitted to discouraging or limiting AI use at work, creating what GCheck CEO Houman Akhavan called a "double distortion" that undermines enterprise AI adoption. The report highlights that more than half of workers exaggerating their AI skills never received training, pointing to a learning culture problem rather than a technology issue.

hough enterprise executives are eager to ramp up their AI efforts, the tech may be causing a workforce morale problem. A study published this week from GCheck https://gcheck.com/blog/automation-anxiety-fuels-ai-skills-bubble-gcheck-report/ found that, faced with anxiety about how automation could impact job security, 63% of 1,500 workers surveyed reported that they exaggerate their AI skills to appear more up-to-date. That number shot up to 80% among Gen Z workers as the tech threatens early-career and entry-level roles more drastically. The GCheck report found that AI is pulling on workers from both ends, leaving them caught between the fear that AI will disrupt their jobs and the pressure to appear as AI power users. - Nearly 70% of workers reported that they believe AI will automate part of their responsibilities. And these concerns may not be unfounded: 40% observed that AI tools are already, in part, doing their jobs. - Only 38% said they feel prepared to use AI tools effectively, while 22% said they would struggle to use AI or wouldn’t be able to use it at all. - Still, many aren’t voicing their concerns. Around 40% said they speak confidently about AI in meetings to avoid appearing behind, and 33% let others assume that they have strong AI skills. - A quarter have taken full credit for AI-assisted work, and 16% admitted to outright lying about their AI skills. Largely, employees are doing this due to pressure to appear AI-capable, fear of losing their jobs, or feeling they don’t have a choice. However, despite talking up AI, the impact on morale is influencing worker behavior towards the tech, GCheck CEO Houman Akhavan told The Deep View. Around 81% of those surveyed admitted that they discourage or limit using AI at work. Akhavan called this contrast “double distortion.” Rather than relying on AI tools, workers are choosing manual work to avoid them. “ It’s a workforce overstating its AI abilities and quietly undermining AI adoption in the same organizations,” Akhavan said. To combat this, enterprise leaders need to approach these anxious workforces with more empathy, Akhavan said. Workers need to feel safe enough to be candid about what they know and do not know, without the fear of job loss looming over them. More than half of the workers who reported exaggerating their AI skills never actually received any training. “That is a learning culture problem dressed up as a technology problem,” Akhavan said. Our Deeper View The foundational truth this survey reveals is that successful and peaceful transformations do not occur under duress. People do not like feeling coerced or forced to engage with anything, let alone something that poses a potential threat to their livelihoods. And we have to be honest that companies using AI as a scapegoat for layoffs https://www.thedeepview.com/articles/the-ai-layoff-panic-is-outrunning-the-data are feeding the problem. Rather than empowering workers to safely experiment and explore, companies that are slashing headcount are creating perceptions of AI that make workers resent the technology rather than be curious about it. This has widespread implications. When workers' words don't reflect their actions due to resentment and anxiety, enterprises don't get a clear picture of how their AI deployments are actually performing. And broadly, the fear fuels negative public opinion on AI, which is already creating growing problems for the industry https://www.thedeepview.com/articles/americans-souring-on-ai-new-data-shows .