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American workers adopted artificial intelligence<\/a> into their work lives at a remarkable pace over the past few years, according to a new poll<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some 12% of employed adults say they use AI daily in their job, according to a Gallup Workforce survey<\/a> conducted this fall of more than 22,000 U.S. workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The survey found roughly one-quarter say they use AI at least frequently, which is defined as at least a few times a week, and nearly half say they use it at least a few times a year. That compares with 21% who were using AI at least occasionally in 2023, when Gallup began asking the question, and points to the impact of the widespread commercial boom that ChatGPT sparked for generative AI tools that can write emails and computer code<\/a>, summarize long documents, create images or help answer questions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Home Depot store associate Gene Walinski is one of the employees embracing AI at work. The 70-year-old turns to an AI assistant on his personal phone roughly every hour on his shift so he can better answer questions about supplies that he is not \u201c100% familiar with\u201d at the store\u2019s electrical department in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI think my job would suffer if I couldn\u2019t because there would be a lot of shrugged shoulders and \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019 and customers don\u2019t want to hear that,\u201d Walinski said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While frequent AI use is on the rise with many employees, AI adoption remains higher among those working in technology-related fields.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n About 6 in 10 technology workers say they use AI frequently, and about 3 in 10 do so daily.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The share of Americans working in the technology sector who say they use AI daily or regularly has grown significantly since 2023, but there are indications that AI adoption could be starting to plateau after an explosive increase between 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In finance, another sector with high AI adoption, 28-year-old investment banker Andrea Tanzi said he uses AI tools every day to synthesize documents and data sets that would otherwise take him several hours to review.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tanzi, who works for Bank of America in New York, said he also makes uses of the bank\u2019s internal AI chatbot, Erica, to help with administrative tasks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In addition, majorities of those working in professional services, at colleges or universities or in K-12 education, say they use AI at least a few times a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Joyce Hatzidakis, 60, a high school art teacher in Riverside, California, started experimenting with AI chatbots to help \u201cclean up\u201d her communications with parents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI can scribble out a note and not worry about what I say and then tell it what tone I want,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then, when I reread it, if it\u2019s not quite right, I can have it edited again. I\u2019m definitely getting less parent complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Another Gallup Workforce survey from last year found that about 6 in 10 employees using AI are relying on chatbots or virtual assistance when they turn to AI tools. About 4 in 10 AI users at work reported using AI to consolidate information or data, to generate ideas or to learn new things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hatzidakis started with ChatGPT and then switched to Google’s Gemini when the school district made that its official tool. She has even used it to help with recommendation letters because \u201cthere\u2019s only so many ways to say a kid is really creative.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The AI industry and the U.S. government are heavily promoting AI adoption in workplaces and schools. More people and organizations will need to buy these tools in order to justify the huge amounts of investment into building and running energy-hungry AI computing<\/a> systems. But not all economists agree on how much they will boost productivity or affect employment prospects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n