Executives use AI more than their workers do

An article from At the same time, a significant subset of business leaders acknowledge they pretend to know more about the technology than they actually do. Published Oct. 5, 2026 cfo.com Getty Images This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. While artificial intelligence is capturing the imagination of just about every societal group, new research suggests that, in the workplace, usage is more common among executives than among their employees. In a recent survey of 7,675 U.S. adults, including 1,960 executives and business owners and 1,471 employees, 53.2% of the bosses are using generative AI, compared with 37.9% of other workers. The gap is even wider for agentic AI, with executives 2.7 times more likely to use it (17.5% vs. 6.6%), according to the research. The data is presented in a report from Channel V Media, a public relations firm that helps companies shape how AI engines describe them, based on a June survey by Proper Insights and Analytics. The most common use of generative AI by executives and owners is for research, while employees use it most often for internet searches. “Leaders appear to be moving past AI as a search tool toward AI-assisted creation and knowledge work. Much of the workforce hasn’t followed,” Channel V Media wrote. However, executives aren’t much more willing than anyone else to let a bot handle high-stakes customer service, the report noted. Three-quarters (76.8%) of executives prefer a live person for banking and financial services, and 77.4% for healthcare matters. The numbers for employees are virtually identical. Channel V Media advised executives to remember their own preferences when promoting products to the general public. “The same hesitation applies to their customers … and the messaging has to assume it’s there,” the report said. An interesting counterpoint was provided by a study from technology and management consulting firm Emergn, in which nearly one in five U.S. senior leaders (18%) admitted pretending to understand more about AI than they actually do. More than a quarter (27%) of the 350 survey respondents said they believed their career prospects would suffer unless they significantly improved their AI skills within the next year. The research also found that 19% of the leaders feel anxious or lose sleep over the pace of AI-driven change, 27% would change jobs for an employer offering better AI training, and 20% feel out of their depth because of AI’s impact on their role. “It is hard to admit you do not understand something when you are supposed to be the person with the answers,” said Emergn CEO Alex Adamopoulos in a release. “But pretending leaves you with the same unanswered question tomorrow.”