AI adoption has reached 40% among U.S. workers

Be careful to double-check your colleagues’ work — large swaths of the U.S. workforce admits to using AI to get their job done.

A new Gallup poll found 40 percent of U.S. employees said they used artificial intelligence in their role “a few times a year or more.” Eight percent used it daily, while 19 percent said they used a few times per week or more.

With all the hype around AI lately, 40 percent almost feels low. But it represents a nearly 100 percent increase from just two years ago. The poll found, perhaps predictably, that white collar workers were far more likely to use AI in their job when compared with blue collar works — 27 percent to 9 percent. The survey also noted that the folks highest-up in a given organization were more likely to utilize AI to do their job. Thirty-three percent of what Gallup called “leaders” — managers who manage managers — used AI a few times per week or more.

AI companies have placed a focus on work-centric products and have shown some promise in being able to help workers. It has become commonplace for workplaces to integrate AI into their everyday tasks.

However, using AI in your work can also prove to be a dangerous proposition. As we’ve covered at Mashable, while AI is interesting, it still struggles with basic accuracy. Google’s AI, for instance, can’t reliably tell you the year or date, let alone perform a complicated task.

New research from Apple found that AI can perform well at some straightforward tasks like coding and math but really struggles with complex problems. The researchers called AI’s output in these cases “the illusion of thinking.”

So if you are using AI in your job, just make sure to double-check the work.