Using AI at work is destroying trust in the workplace, a new study has found.
Workers think bosses who use AI to communicate with them are lazy and don’t care, according to a new University of Florida survey.
More than 75 percent of workers are now using artificial intelligent chatbots such as ChatGPT in their day-to-day work, according to the study.
These chatbots are capable of providing immediate responses to questions, offering insights, information, and advice. They operate using large language models (LLM) that gather data from the internet and repurpose it for various purposes.
Another recent study found that it is men that are far more likely to adopt AI in the workplace too.
Professionals revealed that while AI can be helpful in writing professional memos to staff, using it to do so is damaging trust in the workplace hierarchy.
Employees told researchers Anthony Coman and Peter Cardon that using AI for ‘low-level’ help such as correcting grammar was fine, but extensive use showed a lack of care and trustworthiness.
However, Kelly Siegel, CEO of IT company National Technology Management, said that there was still some ‘fearmongering’ around using AI in workplace communications.
Men are more likely to use AI in the workplace than women, a recent study found
‘People confuse the tool with the outcome,’ Siegel told the Daily Mail.
‘Authenticity doesn’t come from whether you typed every word yourself. It comes from whether your message aligns with your values.’
‘I don’t see AI eroding trust long-term, quite the opposite. When applied with empathy and discipline, it frees leaders to spend less time formatting words and more time leading humans.’
Using AI to craft personal or motivational messages degraded trust most, according to workers polled in the study.
Researchers also found that there was a ‘perception gap’ where AI users think their messages are more professional but the recipients can spot that the tech has been used. This undermines ‘sincerity, integrity, and leadership ability.’
However Coman and Cardon found that there was ‘a tension between perceptions of message quality and perceptions of the sender.’
They explained: ‘Overall, professionals view their own AI use leniently, yet they are more skeptical of the same levels of assistance when used by supervisors.’
‘Despite positive impressions of professionalism in AI-assisted writing, managers who use AI for routine communication tasks put their trustworthiness at risk when using medium-to-high-levels of AI assistance.’
Kelly Siegel, CEO of IT company National Technology Management thinks AI still has use in workplace communications
Regular use of AI tools can undermine trust between managers and their employees
Workers were asked to evaluate AI-written messages of congratulations, both for the perception of the message and how it made them feel about the sender.
Around half of employees viewed supervisors as sincere when they used high levels of AI.
By comparison 83 percent saw low-assistance messages as still sincere.
‘The findings reveal employees can often detect AI-generated content and interpret its use as laziness or lack of caring,’ the researchers wrote.
The latest study comes as AI continues to rip through the workforce, changing the ways we work and destroying thousands of jobs.
A recent report from career advice firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that the relentless march of AI and the knock-on effects of Trump’s tariff policies were the biggest factors in layoffs so far this year.
The study found that layoffs have risen 140 percent from a year ago, a new report reveals.
Companies have already announced more than 800,000 job cuts this year alone, the highest since the pandemic upended the economy in 2020.
