GHFC Research Review: Gallup on AI at Work

by Claire Brady, EdD

Here’s what I find most striking about Gallup’s latest workforce data on AI use: adoption is rising, but leadership clarity is not keeping pace—and that gap should feel very familiar to anyone working in higher education.

According to Gallup’s Q3 2025 survey of more than 23,000 U.S. employees, 45% now report using AI at work at least a few times a year, up from 40% just one quarter earlier. Frequent use is also growing, with nearly one in four employees using AI weekly or more. And yet, daily use remains limited to about 10% of the workforce. In other words, AI is present, but not yet embedded.

That distinction matters for colleges and universities.

What employees are actually using AI for is revealing—and reassuring. The most common use cases are consolidating information, generating ideas, and learning new things. These are not radical or risky applications; they are cognitive support functions that mirror what many faculty and staff are already doing informally. Chatbots and virtual assistants dominate usage, followed by writing and editing tools. More advanced tools—data analytics, coding assistants—remain concentrated among frequent users and knowledge-based roles.

This mirrors what we see on campuses: AI is being used at the edges, often quietly, often personally, and often without institutional coordination.

Gallup’s data underscore a growing divide between individual AI use and organizational AI strategy. Only 37% of employees say their organization has implemented AI to improve productivity or quality. Forty percent say no—and nearly a quarter simply don’t know. Notably, individual contributors are far more likely than leaders to be unsure whether their institution has an AI strategy at all.

For higher education leaders, that “don’t know” should be a flashing warning light.

It suggests that AI adoption is happening without shared language, visible governance, or consistent communication. In practice, that means faculty and staff are making their own decisions about tools, data, ethics, and risk—often with good intentions, but without guidance. This isn’t innovation; it’s fragmentation.

Perhaps most telling is Gallup’s finding that leadership communication lags far behind implementation. While 44% of organizations say they are integrating AI, only 22% of employees report that their leaders have communicated a clear plan. Just 30% say their organization has guidelines or policies for AI use. The result? Confusion about value. Even among AI users, only 16% strongly agree that the tools they’ve been given are actually useful.

For higher education, this reinforces a lesson many of us have been naming for the past two years: AI adoption is not a technology problem—it’s a leadership one.

Gallup’s research is clear that managerial support and strategic integration are the strongest predictors of meaningful AI use. When employees understand the “why,” see leadership alignment, and receive permission and support to experiment, confidence rises. Preparedness triples. Comfort grows. Value becomes visible.

The takeaway for campus leaders is not to move faster for the sake of speed, but to move more intentionally. Communicate clearly. Normalize learning. Name appropriate use cases. Invest in managers as translators and sense-makers. And above all, treat AI not as a side project or pilot, but as a workforce capability that requires the same care, ethics, and leadership as any other institutional change.

Read the full report here: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/691643/work-nearly-doubled-two-years.aspx