Employees Used to Ask Their Managers. New Research Finds They’re Now Asking AI, and Leaders Need to Adjust
The office question box just got replaced by AI.
EXPERT OPINION BY IZA MONTALVO
Employees used to drop by your office with quick questions. Now? They’re whispering to the office AI instead. Research building on a 2024 Adobe study makes one thing clear: a growing number of U.S. workers now ask AI for help before reaching out to their manager.
Adobe’s 2024 study of 1,008 full-time U.S. workers who used AI every week offered an early indication of this shift. When faced with an obvious work question, 68 percent said they would rather ask an AI agent than a manager. Only four percent said they would go to their manager first. When it comes to awkward or “should I know this?” questions, workers were 17 times more likely to confide in AI than in leadership.
Even with harder jobs, like writing the first draft of a project summary or recapping a meeting, AI was the top choice in Adobe’s study. More than 60 percent said they would use AI, compared with only 10 percent who would ask a manager.
Fast-forward to today: Glean’s 2026 Work AI Index shows
Fast-forward to today: Glean’s 2026 Work AI Index shows that this pattern has continued as workplace AI use has expanded. The 2026 Index surveyed 6,000 full-time digital workers across the U.S., U.K., and Australia. It found that 87 percent now use AI at work, and 61 percent say AI helps them more with their day-to-day work than their manager does.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
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The small stuff isn’t really small
Questions like “What did the team decide?” or “Where’s the file?” might seem minor, but they’re essential. These quick asks once fueled teamwork and often signaled when someone was confused or when a process needed attention.
Adobe’s 2024 study found that workers were 17 times more likely to ask an AI agent a question they would hesitate to ask a leader. Why? AI isn’t just faster. It feels safer.
A point to consider: if several employees are asking AI to explain the same policy, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the policy. If workers need AI to explain why a decision was made, chances are nobody wrote down the reasoning in the first place.
Source: www.inc.com
