Why the Next Generation of Workers Isn't Completely Sold on AI

Younger employees’ familiarity with digital tools often shapes what employers expect of them when AI is introduced in the workplace. SHRM and Fidelity Investments’ Today’s Younger Workers: Expectations, Pressures, and Priorities offers a reason to revisit that expectation. In the survey, younger respondents were less willing than their more experienced colleagues to use AI in their daily work.

This finding raises a practical question for HR teams: what is the source of this hesitation? Someone who has used AI often may already know which tasks it makes easier and which take longer once they have to check the output. An employee may also want to work through an unfamiliar problem independently before bringing in a tool.

The distinction matters when an organization is deciding how to introduce AI. A worker who needs help checking the output has a different concern from someone who wants more practice doing the work themselves. The starting point is to understand what they weighed before deciding whether to use it.

Familiarity With AI May Make Employees More Selective

Consider an employee who uses AI to turn meeting notes into an action list. Later, a client queries an invoice. This time, the employee goes straight to the records because a colleague is available to explain why two entries differ. Working through the discrepancy helps them understand what to check the next time a similar query comes in.

An employee who already moves between messaging apps, dashboards and client systems may see little reason to open another tool when the information they need is in front of them. Familiarity with AI may reinforce that choice. They know how much context a useful response takes and how easily a plausible answer can send them down the wrong path.

There is also a question of how much practice they want to retain. Writing the first draft of an analysis requires an employee to decide which facts matter and how they fit together. AI may be useful later, when the employee has a view they want to test. Digital familiarity and a desire for independence are possible explanations for this kind of selective use. The survey leaves the reasons for the difference open.

What Makes Employees Hesitate on a Particular Task

Ask an employee about an assignment they chose to do independently. The answer is likely to be more useful than a general discussion about whether they like AI. Three considerations are worth exploring:

• The time it takes to check the result is worth considering. A draft may appear in seconds. If verifying it requires reopening every source document, the employee may finish sooner by working directly with those documents.

• The responsibility they carry. An employee may be comfortable using AI to organize internal notes and be more cautious when a document goes to a client. They need to know what information they may enter, what to verify, and who signs off on the work.

• Whether the task warrants the resources. An employee who considers the environmental cost of using AI may prefer an existing template for a routine reply and reserve AI for work where it offers a clear benefit. Managers should treat sustainability as a possible consideration and ask how it factors into the employee’s choice.

The response should fit the reason. If several employees are unsure what client information they may enter, HR should clarify the rules. If a tool adds more checking than it saves, the team should look at which part of the assignment it has been asked to handle.

Make Useful AI Easier to Adopt

Start with work the team already knows. Employees who prepare a weekly update from approved notes might try AI on a sample and compare the result with their usual process. Include the time they spend correcting the draft and getting it reviewed. That gives the team a fairer picture of where the tool helps.

Two steps make it easier for employees to use that experience in their own work:

• Give employees a clear starting point. Provide access to an approved tool and show how to use it on a familiar assignment. A worked example should make clear what employees may enter and how to check the result.

• Protect the practice that builds judgment. Where an assignment is designed to teach employees to weigh evidence, give them time to reach an initial view. Introduce AI afterward to test their reasoning or identify a detail worth checking.

HR should make the guidance easy to find. Managers should help employees apply it and bring recurring problems back to HR. When people understand the tool and still struggle to use it within the organization’s rules, the process itself deserves a closer look.

Guide Adoption at a Pace Employees Can Use

HR should ease employees into using AI through assignments where the benefits are clear, with guidance available as they try it. As teams gain experience, managers should ask what has become easier and which decisions still require independent judgment. That gives HR a basis for expanding AI use where it improves the work while allowing employees to develop their own expertise