Gallup Poll Reveals 12% of American Workers Use AI Daily as Adoption Accelerates Across Sectors

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A new Gallup Workforce survey of over 22,000 U.S. workers shows AI at work has grown rapidly, with 12% of employed adults using AI daily and one-quarter using it at least a few times weekly. The poll reveals AI adoption remains highest in technology, finance, and education sectors, though nearly half of all workers now use AI tools at least a few times yearly—up from just 21% in 2023.

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AI at Work Gains Momentum Among American Workers

American workers are integrating AI into their jobs at an accelerating pace, according to a new Gallup Workforce survey that surveyed more than 22,000 U.S. workers this fall

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. The Gallup poll found that 12% of employed adults use AI daily in their job, while roughly one-quarter say they use AI at least frequently—defined as at least a few times a week

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. Nearly half of all workers now report using AI at least a few times a year, a significant jump from the 21% who were using AI at least occasionally in 2023 when Gallup began tracking this metric

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This surge in AI adoption reflects the widespread commercial boom that ChatGPT sparked for generative AI tools capable of writing emails and computer code, summarizing long documents, creating images, and answering questions

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. The impact of generative AI tools has been particularly visible as workers across sectors discover practical applications for these technologies in their daily workflows.

Technology, Finance, and Education Lead AI Integration in the Workplace

While AI adoption is rising across the workforce, AI usage in technology remains the highest among all sectors. About 6 in 10 technology workers say they use AI frequently, and about 3 in 10 do so daily

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. The technology sector has seen significant growth since 2023, though there are indications that AI adoption could be starting to plateau after an explosive increase between 2024 and 2025

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The finance sector shows similarly high AI adoption rates. Andrea Tanzi, a 28-year-old investment banker at Bank of America in New York, uses AI tools every day to synthesize documents and data sets that would otherwise take him several hours to review

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. He also relies on the bank's internal AI chatbot, Erica, to help with administrative tasks and data analysis.

In the education sector, AI in American workplaces has found diverse applications. Joyce Hatzidakis, a 60-year-old high school art teacher in Riverside, California, started experimenting with AI chatbots to help "clean up" her communications with parents

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. "I can scribble out a note and not worry about what I say and then tell it what tone I want," she explained. "And then, when I reread it, if it's not quite right, I can have it edited again. I'm definitely getting less parent complaints." Hatzidakis started with ChatGPT and then switched to Google's Gemini when the school district made that its official tool

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. Majorities of those working in professional services, at colleges or universities, or in K-12 education say they use AI at least a few times a year

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How Workers Apply AI Tools to Daily Tasks

Another Gallup Workforce survey from last year revealed that about 6 in 10 employees using AI rely on chatbots or virtual assistance when they turn to AI tools

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. About 4 in 10 AI users at work reported using AI to consolidate information or data, to generate ideas, or to learn new things.

Real-world examples demonstrate the practical value workers find in these tools. Gene Walinski, a 70-year-old Home Depot store associate, turns to an AI assistant on his personal phone roughly every hour on his shift to better answer questions about supplies he is not "100% familiar with" at the store's electrical department in New Smyrna Beach, Florida

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. "I think my job would suffer if I couldn't because there would be a lot of shrugged shoulders and 'I don't know' and customers don't want to hear that," Walinski said.

The Uneven Impact of Automation on Job Security and Productivity

The AI industry and the U.S. government are heavily promoting AI adoption in workplaces and schools, driven partly by the need to justify massive investments into building and running energy-hungry AI computing systems

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. However, not all economists agree on how much these tools will boost productivity or affect employment prospects.

Sam Manning, a fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI and co-author of new papers on AI job effects for the Brookings Institution and the National Bureau of Economic Research, notes that workers in computer-based jobs involving heavy AI usage "usually have higher levels of education, wider ranges of skill sets that can be applied to different jobs, and they also have higher savings, which is helpful for weathering an income shock if you lose your job"

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Yet Manning's research has identified approximately 6.1 million workers in the United States who are both heavily exposed to AI and less equipped to adapt

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. Many work in administrative and clerical work, about 86% are women, and they tend to be older and concentrated in smaller cities, such as university towns or state capitals, with fewer options to shift careers. "If their skills are automated, they have less transferable skills to other jobs and they have a lower savings, if any savings," Manning said. "An income shock could be much more harmful or difficult to manage."

This disparity highlights a critical question for policymakers and business leaders: as AI integration in the workplace continues to expand, how can organizations ensure that the benefits of automation extend beyond highly educated workers in major metropolitan areas? The data suggests that while AI tools may enhance productivity for some, job displacement risks remain concentrated among vulnerable populations with limited resources to adapt to rapidly changing workplace demands.

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