AI in the Workplace: New Research on Performative AI
New research reveals nearly half of employees exaggerate their AI use at work—and unclear leadership plans are what's driving the performance.
Business leaders have spent the last few years urgently telling employees to use more AI at work. This urgency has hit a fever pitch, and increasingly it seems employees have just started telling leaders what they want to hear, even if it's not entirely truthful.
We partnered with a third-party research outlet to find what’s really going on from an employee perspective about AI in the workplace. The survey of 1,000 US full-time employees asked how they use AI day-to-day and what they think of their organization's AI strategy.
As part of Visier’s ongoing research into how AI is transforming the employee and employer experience, we then interviewed employees across Healthcare, Finance, HR, software, and other core domains to hear how this plays out in their own worlds.
The headline finding in the new pulse report, named "AI Usage At Work: 'Performative AI' Stems From Lack of Confidence in Leaders":
48% of employees say they have exaggerated their AI usage or expertise to colleagues or leadership at least some of the time. “Performative AI” has become a coping mechanism for a workforce that has been handed a mandate without a map.
Key findings about AI usage at work:
54% say their roles or careers have significantly changed due to AI in the past two years, while 44% say AI has not.
48% have exaggerated their AI usage or expertise to colleagues or leadership.
59% do not believe, or are unsure whether, their employer has a clear plan for how AI affects jobs.
Training and transparency, not job guarantees, top the list of what employees want.
AI in the workplace has changed daily work, but not always as expected
“[It makes] some aspects of the job easier, because you’re not coding everything by hand, but also you’re expecting to do more in the same amount of time.” — AI Engineer
More than half of employees surveyed (54%) say their roles or careers have significantly changed because of AI in the past two years. For 51%, the day-to-day workflow itself has significantly or moderately changed.
Our interviews surfaced two themes where AI acts as an accelerator for one employee and a barrier for the next.
Delivery speed cuts both ways. Some employees now produce AI-accelerated productivity that outpaces the stakeholders waiting on it. Others feel squeezed by leadership expectations built on what AI theoretically makes possible.
The impact on collaboration is also divided. One HR leader described shorter meetings and tighter teamwork: "I find we collaborate a lot more and a lot more closely." While another reported the opposite, with AI often reducing the ways specific roles used to require working together.
Any AI strategy built on a single company-wide assumption about how employees feel will miss the nuanced emotional and experiential differences between domains and between roles. What’s happening with AI usage on the Finance team could be playing out quite differently on the software development side.
“Performative AI” is widespread because employees are facing uncertainty
“The question of, ‘why didn’t you just have AI do it’…that ask for expedience, I think, can be a lot of pressure on people, especially those who are still learning the tools and need that space to explore.” — Software Lead
Nearly half of employees (45%) feel pressure to use AI at work even when they are not confident they know how to use it effectively.
Seven in 10 expressed concern about AI's current or potential negative impact on their careers, with increased risk of job loss leading those concerns at 24%, followed by higher performance expectations, fewer advancement opportunities, and finally, difficulty keeping skills relevant.
From those surveyed, it became clear there was a pattern of visible compliance over real AI adoption and integration into work. In fact, 48% of employees said they have exaggerated their AI usage in the workplace to their coworkers and to leaders. For these employees, “performative AI” feels safer than admitting they're still learning.
For anyone measuring AI adoption through self-reported usage, this finding deserves a hard look because your adoption signal could be measurably exaggerated.
Employees don't believe leaders have a plan
We discovered that 32% of employees say their employer does not have a clear plan for how AI affects employees and jobs, while another 27% are unsure whether a plan even exists. Employees also rate leadership understanding of AI at work low across the board: only 28% say their leaders fully understand how employees use AI today, 33% think leaders actually understand how much training and support employees need, and just 29% believe leaders recognize employee concerns about AI.
Visier's previous research on strategic workforce planning seems to support these findings. We found that even if 87% of leaders call aligning workforce and business strategy their top business need, only 29% say their organization is actually good at that kind of planning. Furthermore, 56% called AI-driven skill alignment a business-critical mission, but just 15% said their workforce planning is keeping pace.
The two datasets describe the same issue from both sides of the employee-employer relationship. Leaders know what matters and admit they haven't delivered it. And employees have noticed.
Training, resources, and support: This is what employees are actually asking for
Only 21% of employees strongly agree their employer provides the training, resources, and support needed to adapt to AI-driven change.
When we asked what would raise their confidence about AI usage in the workplace, the answers skewed practical rather than protective:
32% want more AI training and upskilling
31% want greater transparency from leadership
24% want more opportunities for career advancement
18% want clearer communication about how AI will affect employees
Only 12% say nothing would move them
We found it especially interesting that training and transparency outranked job security concerns for employees. People told us that they actually want to be equipped and informed, not shielded or protected from AI-driven change.
This discovery must directly impact the direction of work for talent leaders: upskilling or reskilling programs and building credible career paths inside an organization are more important than ever.
Where CHROs and talent leaders go from here
Based on what we have uncovered in our research on employees' perspectives on AI usage at work, it seems clear that business leaders navigating this new environment must listen to their people.
What I'd add is that listening has to mean more than asking.
If you are already asking for AI self-reporting, half your workforce inflates its AI usage; there is a very real and costly gap between leadership’s expectations and the day-to-day reality for employees.
It's high time to ask everyone in your organization how their roles are actually changing, where skills are disappearing, and where teams are feeling the most uncertain. As you can see from our report, experiences vary widely, and each organization’s leadership needs to treat AI usage (and mandates) delicately to keep employee trust high for a more resilient workforce.
In my experience, employees already know their work is changing, and leaders must now listen and increase transparency about how AI is integrating into every role.
Stop guessing about how your people feel about AI
Get the full report that breaks down the data alongside firsthand interviews from employees across Healthcare, Finance, HR, and Engineering. Download the report.
Frequently asked questions
What is performative AI?
“Performative AI” is the practice of visibly demonstrating or exaggerating AI usage and expertise to satisfy employer expectations, rather than genuinely adopting AI tools. Visier Research found that 48% of US full-time employees have exaggerated their AI usage or expertise to colleagues or leadership at least some of the time.
What percentage of employees exaggerate their AI usage at work?
48%, according to Visier's survey of 1,000 US full-time employees.
How many employees feel pressured to use AI at work?
45% of employees report feeling pressure to use AI at work even when they are not confident in how to use it effectively.
What do employees want most from leaders on AI?
By the numbers, we found that 32% want more AI training and upskilling opportunities and 31% want greater transparency from leadership, both ahead of career advancement (24%) and clearer communication about AI's impact (18%).
