New Gallup polling reveals a significant trend in American workplaces: more employees are integrating artificial intelligence into their jobs, yet widespread skepticism and concern persist. The February 2026 poll highlights a divergence in perspectives, with some workers embracing AI for productivity and efficiency, while others harbor alarm over potential job displacement, ethical concerns, and data privacy issues.

Roughly three in ten employees are frequent users of AI in their professional roles, utilizing it daily or a few times a week. Another two in ten are infrequent users, engaging with AI tools a few times a month or year. The survey indicates that approximately four in ten workers report their organizations have adopted AI technologies to enhance practices. Of these, about two-thirds attest to AI having an "extremely" or "somewhat" positive impact on their individual productivity and efficiency at work.

The benefits of AI appear more pronounced in specific sectors and roles. Workers in management, healthcare, and technology positions who use AI are more likely to report productivity boosts—around six in ten—compared to 45% of those in service jobs. For instance, social worker Scott Segal, 53, regularly leverages AI to connect vulnerable patients with healthcare resources in northern Virginia, finding it a valuable tool despite his personal concerns about AI potentially replacing his role. Similarly, labor and employment attorney Elizabeth Bloch uses ChatGPT to draft diplomatic communications in her adversarial profession, noting its utility in sensitive exchanges.

Despite the observed productivity gains, a considerable segment of the workforce remains hesitant or unwilling to adopt AI. About half of U.S. employees use AI only once a year or not at all. Among workers who have AI tools available but choose not to use them, 46% state a preference for their current work methods. Furthermore, approximately four in ten non-users cite ethical opposition to AI, concerns about data privacy, or a belief that AI cannot be genuinely helpful for their tasks. Some, like attorney Elizabeth Bloch, have tried AI for legal research but found it prone to "hallucinations" or generating false information, even with specialized tools, raising fears about misuse and sanctions for false citations. Thuy Pisone, a contract administrator in Maryland, uses AI for mundane tasks but prefers to handle more skilled work, like creating PowerPoint slides, herself, having honed those skills over time.

A growing concern among American workers is the potential for new technologies, including AI, automation, and robots, to eliminate jobs. The poll found that 18% of U.S. workers believe it is "very" or "somewhat" likely their current job will be eliminated within the next five years, an increase from 15% in 2025. This concern is even higher among employees at companies that have already adopted AI, with 23% expressing such worries. A separate Fox News poll in March indicated that about six in ten registered voters anticipate AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates over the next five years. Scott Segal, the social worker, exemplifies this sentiment, planning an alternative "health care chaperone service" as a future career, believing that AI will displace most employment functions before robots are physically embodied with AI. In the interim, he actively uses AI chatbots to strategize for his retirement savings.

The Gallup quarterly workforce surveys, which informed these findings, were conducted between February 4-19, 2026, involving a random sample of 23,717 employed U.S. adults aged 18 and older from Gallup’s probability-based Gallup Panel. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 0.9 percentage points.