Two-thirds of US workers expect AI to make their jobs worse, Ipsos survey finds

Two-thirds of American workers expect artificial intelligence to make the worker experience worse by eliminating jobs and putting greater pressure on workers, according to a survey Ipsos conducted for the Groundwork Collaborative.

The poll was conducted June 11 to 16, 2026, on Ipsos’s probability-based KnowledgePanel. It reached a nationally representative sample of 1,533 Americans aged 18 to 75 who are employed or marginally attached to the workforce, in English and Spanish, and carries a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points. Results were weighted to 2024 American Community Survey benchmarks across nine demographic categories.

Asked who stands to gain from the technology, 51 percent of workers said the benefits would go only or mostly to business owners and executives, according to the Groundwork Collaborative. Six percent said workers would be the main beneficiaries. Fourteen percent said AI would not benefit anyone.

Who is using it

About three in ten workers said they use AI at work at least weekly, and Ipsos found that use is concentrated at the top of the income and education scale. Roughly half of workers earning $100,000 or more, workers with bachelor’s degrees and white-collar employees said they use AI tools at least a few times a month. Among workers earning less than $50,000, workers with a high school education or less, and blue-collar employees, the share was about a quarter or fewer.

Expectations divide along the same lines. Nearly half of workers with a college degree said they believe AI will help them with their work and improve their job. Among workers with a high school education or less, the figure was about one in five.

Groundwork reported that 12 percent of Black workers said they expect AI to replace their job, compared with 4 percent of white workers, and that 41 percent of unemployed respondents said AI has already had a negative effect on their field.

Alex Jacquez of the Groundwork Collaborative told Semafor that the results describe “yet another class divide for the American public.” Jacquez said he does not view universal basic income as the answer, and that a public ownership stake in AI companies, an idea put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, could be “part of a solution.”

Elizabeth Pancotti, a vice president at the Groundwork Collaborative, told Common Dreams that workers “expect the tech to deepen existing inequality in the workplace.”

What workers using AI report

A separate survey asked about current use rather than expectations. The Society for Human Resource Management surveyed 5,875 U.S. workers aged 18 to 90 in March and April 2026 for its workplace AI report. It found that 41 percent of workers use AI for work, that 68 percent of those users report improved efficiency and 63 percent report improved quality of work, and that 69 percent said they feel secure in their roles.

The same survey asked about time spent fixing what the tools produce. Workers using AI reported saving about six hours a week and spending about four hours a week correcting AI output. Forty-four percent of AI users described their output as “AI slop.” Forty-five percent of entry-level and early-career respondents said they feel pressure to use AI, and 69 percent of workers described themselves as beginner or intermediate users.

Fewer than half of the workers SHRM surveyed, 49 percent, said they believe AI improves their career prospects. Trust in leadership on the subject also varied by rank: 61 percent said they trust senior leaders who talk about AI, a figure that fell to 47 percent among individual contributors.

The Groundwork Collaborative is a progressive economic policy organization. Common Dreams reported that the June poll is the first release from a yearlong study of worker attitudes on AI.