AI & Work
Workers are using AI more, but fewer say they have the training to go with it. PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2026, published September 29, found that 64% of workers used AI at work in the past 12 months, a 10-point increase from a year earlier. Over the same period, the share reporting access to learning and development resources fell to 51% from 59%.
What the survey found
PwC gathered responses from 49,364 workers across 48 countries and regions and 29 sectors in May and June 2026. The share of the workforce using generative AI daily rose to 22% from 14%.
PwC sorts respondents into four groups. The largest, which it calls the core workforce or “engine room,” makes up 56% of the total. PwC says this group has less access to AI, learning and opportunity: fewer than 40% say they have access to learning and development resources, compared with nearly 80% of the group PwC calls “front-runners.” Front-runners make up 14% of the workforce; 51% of them use generative AI daily, versus 11% of the core workforce. They are also restless: 29% of front-runners say they are very or extremely likely to change employer in the next year.
The survey also points to strain outside the technology. PwC reports that trust in top management fell seven points from a year earlier; among the engine-room group, only 33% trust top management. It says only 34% of workers can pay their bills with some money left over, down eight points. More workers cite economic volatility (57%) than AI taking on more tasks (44%) as a risk to their job security.
Why it matters
The pattern PwC describes is a two-speed adoption: a smaller group of heavy users with training and options, and a larger group falling behind on both. That creates retention risk at the top and a skills gap in the middle. Buying AI software licenses does not by itself teach employees how to use, check and govern the tools inside their actual jobs.
What not to conclude
This is a global survey by a consulting firm, with worker segments PwC defined itself. PwC weights results to each country’s working population by gender and age, but the figures are not a U.S. labor-force estimate. PwC reports that daily generative-AI users are more confident about their job security, but that association does not show that AI use causes the confidence. The results should not be read as a prediction for any particular employer.
What to watch
The measurable question for employers is whether training reaches the workers whose jobs are changing. Internal mobility, retention and promotion data will show whether learning investment is broadening opportunity or widening the gap between groups.
Sources
- PwC, “Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2026,” September 29, 2026. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/workforce/hopes-and-fears.html
Featured photo: Two people work with laptops and handwritten notes. Representative image; the people pictured are not connected to the PwC survey. Photo: Helloquence, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0). Cropped from the original.
