Half of CHROs not confident managers can guide AI use by workers

How artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping workplace culture is split, according to a survey, which finds the the tech is worsening culture for a quarter of employees at AI-adopting organizations while improving it for roughly the same share.

Gallup's Q1 2026 workforce study of U.S. employees found 59 per cent at organizations without AI adoption said their culture had stayed the same over the past year, with the remainder split evenly between improvement and decline.

Among employees at AI-adopting organizations, only 51 per cent reported no change. Twenty-five per cent said culture had worsened to some degree, while 24 per cent said it had improved.

Of those who noticed a shift, 46 per cent attributed it somewhat or a great deal to technology such as automation or AI, according to Gallup. Researchers Morgan Meinen and Megan Mulherin concluded that "the introduction of AI alone doesn't create a consistently better workplace."

When Amazon launched Alexa+ in Mexico, the company learned a crucial lesson for employers: connecting on a culture level goes far beyond language, local jokes and slang, according to a previous report.

Manager behaviour cited as key factor

According to Gallup’s survey of 102 CHROs, 99 per cent consider AI somewhat or very important to their organization's strategy.

That near-universal endorsement is not matched at the management level. Fifty per cent of the CHROs surveyed said they are not very confident, or not at all confident, in their managers' ability to guide employees on using AI at work.

Gallup's data identifies manager behaviour as the clearest differentiator between organizations where AI is improving culture and those where it is not.

Employees who strongly agree that their manager champions AI were far more likely to say the technology has transformed how work gets done, at 33 per cent, compared with 4 per cent among those who do not strongly agree. Gallup identified manager championing of AI as the single clearest factor separating organizations where the technology is helping workplace culture from those where it is not.

Among employees who strongly agree their manager actively supports the team's AI use, 31 per cent reported an improved culture over the past year, versus 21 per cent of those without that backing. Nine per cent of the former group said culture had improved a great deal, compared with 3 per cent of the latter.

AI transformation and training

Gallup found 57 per cent of CHROs surveyed are now providing AI-specific training for people managers, while 78 per cent are encouraging peer-to-peer learning and 62 per cent are establishing centres of excellence or internal AI champions.

Gallup cautioned that training alone is unlikely to be sufficient. The organization noted managers already carry expanding responsibilities and wider spans of control, meaning AI transformation duties risk becoming, in Gallup's assessment, another competing demand rather than a supported priority.

That capacity strain is compounded by a broader confidence problem among the same leaders driving AI strategy, according to Gallup's separate CHRO survey.

“Many CHROs are investing in manager training and AI champions, reflecting an emphasis on helping managers guide employees through workplace change,” said Meinen and Mulherin.

“The findings underscore the importance of supporting managers throughout this transition. Equipping managers with clear communication, resources and support to lead change may be just as important as investing in the technology itself.”

A quarter of workers who use AI for workplace messages say their writing no longer sounds like them, and more than half say they've watched a coworker's personality disappear from their messages, according to a previous report.

Strong AI-driven cultures

HR can use AI to strengthen workplace culture, though the evidence consistently points to conditions that determine whether it helps or backfires, according to separate reports: