Report: Training Gaps Around AI Still Linger

Generative AI has become part of everyday work, according to a new report, but rank-and-file workers remain concerned about the level of training they receive on it.

AI Becomes a Daily Workplace Tool With Employees Trying to Stay   (opens in a new tab)Ahead  (opens in a new tab), a white paper published last month by the American Management Association, is based on a survey of 1,365 individuals globally. The report found that AI is used by 95 percent of organizations, with 58 percent saying they use it daily. And much of the anxiety workers feel about being replaced by AI tools has dissipated in the past year: While 91 percent of employees in 2023 reported concerns that AI might “impact or replace their jobs,” only 29 percent in the current survey expressed that worry.

Still, workers say they are looking for more guidance from leadership around AI than they’re currently receiving. Though 78 percent of companies said they provided some form of AI training, a majority of employees (57 percent) said they are “feeling behind in their AI knowledge,” a figure little changed from 2024. That feeling is more acute among frontline employees (72 percent) than senior leadership (42 percent).

Moreover, while a solid majority (75 percent) of organizations report having an AI strategy, only 53 percent say they have established AI governance policies. And while a majority of organizations have provided introductory training or advised their workers on overall AI strategy, fewer than 40 percent have offered “ethics compliance or governance-related training.”

Those gaps present a twofold problem for organizations, according to the report. Not only does lack of training create organizational risks around data security and misuse of AI tools, it prevents organizations from using AI for more innovative projects. The report encourages organizational leaders to better integrate AI into workflows and train employees around it. 

“Leaders must recognize that AI technology development at a broader scale will continue to outpace AI development within the organization for the foreseeable future, and need to find ways to harness and amplify the employee’s untapped innovation initiatives,” the report says. Currently, employees are using AI most often for task automation (66 percent) than more robust tasks such as “generating insights from data” (55 percent) and “creating new growth opportunities” (53 percent).

Still, the report says that most employees feel ready for what’s coming next: 80 percent said they feel “very” or “somewhat” prepared to work alongside AI agents in the coming year. 

Future success, the report says, will depend on organizations’ capacity to train continuously around AI, and help employees make distinctions between the kinds of roles where AI is helpful, and which require human interaction.

“The organizations that will thrive are those that see AI as a catalyst to elevate human potential,” the report says. “They will promote continuous learning and training, empower employees to innovate, and build governance that protects without stifling. They will pair AI literacy with human strengths such as creativity, empathy, problem solving, and critical thinking to improve their business outcomes.”