Half of U.S. Workers Now Use AI, One-Fifth Reassign Tasks From Colleagues

Workplace AI adoption reaches critical mass

Nearly half of employed U.S. adults now use artificial intelligence tools for work, with more than 20% incorporating AI into their daily routines, according to new polling data from nonprofit research center Epoch AI and polling firm Ipsos.

The survey reveals a significant shift in how work gets distributed: one in five employed adults are now using AI for tasks they or their teams previously would have assigned to contractors or colleagues. The finding suggests AI is beginning to reshape internal workflows and task delegation patterns across American workplaces.

Why it matters

This data provides concrete evidence that AI has moved beyond experimental adoption into operational reality for a substantial portion of the workforce. The shift toward using AI for tasks previously handled by human collaborators has immediate implications for workforce planning, contractor relationships, and how organizations structure collaborative work. Business leaders need visibility into these organic adoption patterns to make informed decisions about AI investment, training, and workforce strategy.

How workers are deploying AI tools

The poll identified specific use cases driving adoption. Just over 23% of respondents used AI to help read and synthesize documents in the past week, while 22% deployed it for data analysis and evaluation tasks.

ChatGPT remains the dominant platform, used by approximately 34% of employed U.S. adults, followed by Google's Gemini at 24% and Microsoft's Copilot at 15%. Roughly half of workers access AI through workplace-provided systems rather than consumer versions.

Amreeta Das, who led the Epoch AI research, noted the findings reveal how workers are actively dividing responsibilities between themselves and AI systems. "So far, this does not necessarily mean that there is automation of whole jobs, but there are tasks within these jobs through which AI is entering the workforce," Das explained.

Task automation versus job replacement

Aya Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute who reviewed preliminary results, emphasized that the data points toward task-level efficiency gains rather than wholesale job elimination. The finding about delegating work to AI that previously went to coworkers or contractors doesn't necessarily indicate entire roles will disappear, though task-based contractors may face more direct pressure.

Ibrahim highlighted that the research represents a valuable shift in how AI's workplace impact gets studied. "In the discourse around AI and disruption, it feels like so much of the conversation is framed as 'this is what's going to happen to workers,' and less of how workers themselves are thinking of their own precarity," she said.

The polling arrives as businesses navigate rapid AI capability expansion. In the past year alone, generative AI systems have evolved from primarily handling text queries and data sorting to performing substantial technical work, including generating the majority of code at major technology companies.

These findings were first reported by NBC News and build on earlier Epoch AI polling from March and April that established baseline AI adoption rates among American workers.