AI use and AI strategy as seen by leaders and by staff

Gallup finds that 44 per cent of US leaders use AI a few times a week or more, against 23 per cent of employees without a management role, and that half of all workers never use it. Leaders are more likely than their people to call the effect strongly positive. At BCG, across fourteen countries, a third of front-line staff find leadership’s communication about AI clear. Microsoft hears from one in four AI users that their leadership is aligned.

The problem is rarely the tool. BCG counts 42 per cent of regular users saving about eight hours a week, and two thirds of them getting no guidance on what to do with that time. Microsoft calculates that the organisation (culture, manager support, talent policy) explains two thirds of the reported effect of AI, and individual attitude one third. Employees who see their manager openly using AI and setting quality standards demonstrably get more out of it.

Capgemini Research Institute shows how this plays out in property and casualty insurance. The institute surveyed 344 executives and 809 employees at insurers. Of AI spending, 72 per cent goes to technology and 28 per cent to support and training; 42 per cent of insurers measure no AI outcomes at all; and 14 per cent of employees know exactly how AI fits into their work. Almost half of employees with access to AI tools say their working day is unchanged after eighteen months.

That makes this a question for the board, not for IT. See also the briefing The manager’s role in how employees use AI; this briefing is about the two things that come on top of that. What happens to the hours saved, and what makes AI-assisted work good enough? Without an answer to the first, the time evaporates; without an answer to the second, you get polished texts that nobody has checked.

Employees in the Dutch financial sector describe the same gap. In February 2026 the trade union CNV asked members at banks, insurers and pension administrators about AI and the reorganisations, and 388 members responded. Of these, 86 per cent already notice the influence of AI in their daily work and 63 per cent see its rapid development as a threat to their own job. Members say management presents AI as a tool to work better and faster, while they see cost cutting and job losses as the real aim. The survey is not representative: these are union members who chose to respond.

How solid is this? Gallup has been measuring the same gap since 2023, and in 2026 four large datasets point the same way. This is no longer hype; this is where things stand.