HomeBlogCEL Scholar Examining AI Use in the Workplace by Amanda SturgillJanuary 31, 2025 Share: Section NavigationSkip section navigationIn this sectionBlog Home AI and Engaged Learning Assessment of Learning Capstone Experiences CEL News CEL Retrospectives CEL Reviews Collaborative Projects and Assignments Community-Based Learning Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity ePortfolio Feedback First-Year Experiences Global Learning Health Sciences High Impact Practices Immersive Learning Internships Learning Communities Mentoring Relationships Online Education Place-Based Learning Professional and Continuing Education Publishing SoTL Reflection and Metacognition Relationships Residential Learning Communities Service-Learning Student-Faculty Partnership Studying EL Supporting Neurodivergent and Physically Disabled Students Undergraduate Research Work-Integrated Learning Writing Transfer in and beyond the University Style Guide for Posts to the Center for Engaged Learning Blog As a teacher in higher education, it’s easy to feel pressure to have my graduates job-market ready, and at my university, we have had some engaging discussions about how well we should prepare students to use AI on the job. As a professor in a professional field (journalism), I’d say it’s particularly intense for us. We see industry stories about media outlets trying different kinds of AI content creation, and even my local newspaper (which is from the state capital) has regular features written by AI. It’s easy to believe that employers expect students to be fluent with AI since it seems like a big deal in the workplace. There’s a real tug-of-war between the glacial rate of academic change and the breakneck pace of technology hype, so a newer study by Gallup suggests that companies aren’t all adopting AI quickly—the industry isn’t using AI as much as academics anticipated. The study, released in October of 2024, suggested there’s a huge gap between what employers are hoping for and what employees actually know and feel comfortable with. Gallup asked questions about AI at work of 21,543 working adults aged 18 and older as part of a regularly scheduled survey series for a panel of respondents. The results were really interesting. But before I get to that, I found the tone of the write-up also to be fascinating, mostly because there was a pre-supposition that incorporating AI support or replacement was desirable. A sub-headline asks, “How can Organizations Improve AI Adoption?” That is contradicted by a flurry of news stories about companies and governments restricting or forbidding AI use at work. These are not all companies, of course, but it does suggest that a technological determinism or fatalism about the centrality of AI for the future of work may be overblown. Back to the survey, though. Gallup asked what employees were doing with AI and framed the answers to ask why there wasn’t wider adoption. Communication was a main obstacle. In their sample, in a survey of chief human resources officers, 93 percent of top HR folks who responded said their companies use AI. In a survey of employees, just one third of employees said they knew this. Furthermore, just 15 percent of employees said the organization had a coherent plan for integrating the tools. A majority of employees—70 percent—said there’s no guidance on how to use AI at work, and half said they had received no training. So, clear messaging and support at the organizational level was just not in place. I would say that this comports with my own experience in academia, where the rollout of and reaction to AI has been markedly uneven. In academia, academic freedom issues help to explain this, I think. Even if the communication were clear, the comfort with using AI might be a problem. Gallup found that even with all investments in AI, 69 percent of employees said they never used it for work. On top of that, only 6 percent reported they were very comfortable using AI, and the pollster actually reported a drop in those feeling ready to work with it since a previous study. For those who do use AI, it is mostly for generating ideas (41 percent). Other popular uses included consolidating information (39 percent) and automating basic tasks (39 percent). The job description may matter, too. Leaders are more likely to say they use AI for consolidating information and automating tasks than other employees were. This may be because of the tasks leaders do. They may handle more data and have more repetitive tasks that can benefit from automation. So, while AI adoption is on the rise, actual use by employees is still low. There’s a clear gap between what’s expected and what’s being used. So maybe there is a little less pressure for educators to quickly bring AI into the classroom. References Alexis, Alexei. 2024. “One in four companies ban GenAI.” CFO Dive. https://www.cfodive.com/news/one-in-four-companies-ban-genai/705966/. Den Houter, Kate. 2024. “AI in the Workplace: Answering 3 Big Questions.” Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/651203/workplace-answering-big-questions.aspx. Marr, Chris, Isabel Gottlieb, and Robert Iafolla. 2024. “AI Revolution in Employment Tools Surfaces Risks for Businesses.” Bloomberg Law. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/ai-revolution-in-employment-tools-surfaces-risks-for-businesses. The National Conference of State Legislatures. 2024. “Artificial Intelligence 2023 Legislation.” https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/artificial-intelligence-2023-legislation. About the Author Amanda Sturgill, Associate Professor of Journalism at Elon University, is a 2024-2026 CEL Scholar focusing on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and engaged learning in higher education. Connect with her at asturgil@elon.edu. How to Cite this Post Sturgill, Amanda. 2025. “Examining AI Use in the Workplace .” Center for Engaged Learning (Blog). Elon University, January 24, 2025. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/examining-ai-use-in-the-workplace/.