Workplace AI Adoption Tracks Empathy, Businessolver Survey Finds

The finding

Companies often treat workplace AI adoption as a software rollout. New survey data points somewhere else: to how workers feel about the people asking them to use the tools. Businessolver's 2026 State of Workplace Empathy AI Special Report, released in August, found that employees who see their leaders as empathetic are much more likely to describe AI as empowering and a source of growth. Workers in cultures they call toxic tend to describe it as disruption and extra work.12

The headline gap is in training. Close to nine in ten employees at empathetic workplaces said their AI training had been adequate. That compares with 51% of all employees and 33% of employees in toxic cultures.12 One write-up of the report puts the empathetic-culture figure at 87%.14 The same pattern shows up on other measures. In empathetic cultures, 83% of workers said AI makes them more optimistic about their future with their employer, against 61% of all employees. Eighty percent said AI gives them more agency and control over their work, against 54% overall.1215 Job security follows the same line: 69% of all employees feel secure about keeping their role as AI spreads, and that rises to 80% in empathetic organizations.14

The toxic-culture group shows the other side. About half of those workers, 51%, worry about falling behind in using AI well, and the same share worry about what AI means for their future at the company.12

What the survey is and isn't

Businessolver sells benefits and HR technology.12 Its report surveyed more than 1,000 working U.S. adults in six industries, including financial services, manufacturing and technology.12 It also polled more than 300 C-suite executives.13 The company says Edelman Data & Intelligence ran the survey in March and April 2026, with more than 1,300 employees and executives in total.

Coverage of the report mostly agrees on the numbers but frames them differently. HR Dive was careful: it tied the near-nine-in-ten figure specifically to adequate AI training.12 A Forbes column by leadership author Kevin Kruse grouped the training and positive-sentiment results into one statistic. It also said the empathetic, neutral and toxic companies had similar budgets and resources, so culture was the real difference.15 A later summary went further and described the result as nine in ten workers feeling "AI-ready."2 Each retelling makes the claim a little bigger than the one before.

That matters for how much weight the data can carry. The survey records how employees see their own workplaces. People rate their culture and then rate how they feel about AI. A worker who trusts their manager will probably rate both the culture and the training more kindly, so some of the gap may reflect general goodwill rather than empathy causing adoption. That is an analytical caution, not a sign the data is wrong. But it means the evidence supports a strong link between empathy and AI attitudes, not proof of cause and effect. It also measures sentiment and perceived readiness, not how much people actually use AI tools.

Why the link holds up anyway

The Businessolver numbers are more convincing because they fit a body of research that came before them. In an April Harvard Business Review essay, psychologist Jamil Zaki argued that successful AI adoption depends on empathy. He pointed to a large gap between how executives think AI is going and how workers experience it.3 He cited a BCG survey in which 76% of executives thought their employees were enthusiastic about AI; the actual figure was 31%.11 In another survey he described, 40% of CEOs believed AI was saving their workers more than eight hours a week. Two-thirds of those workers said it saved them two hours or less.11

Zaki also linked low-trust rollouts to two costly problems. The first is "workslop": AI output that looks fine but is shallow, and that colleagues then spend hours trying to make sense of. The second is active resistance. He cited a Writer survey in which nearly a third of employees, and 44% of Gen Z workers, admitted to undermining their company's AI strategy.11 He also pointed to evidence that employees who feel psychologically safe are more likely to adopt AI tools. In an MIT survey of 500 leaders, 84% saw a connection between psychological safety and concrete AI results.11

The Businessolver data adds numbers to that argument. When workers don't trust why AI is being introduced, more training alone is unlikely to win them over. Kruse makes the point directly: fear of AI may not be something a better upskilling program can solve.15

The executive contradiction

The most revealing data is about executives. About a third of the C-suite leaders Businessolver surveyed said their main reason for investing in AI is to cut costs by reducing headcount. Yet 60% said they need to show more empathy as their companies rely more on AI.13 More than six in ten CEOs said it is hard to show empathy in their daily work, a 32-point jump from the year before.12 Zaki, citing Businessolver's 2025 report, noted that 59% of CEOs called empathy non-essential at work, up 12 points from 2024.11

Put together, leadership is under pressure to deliver efficiency while also being told the efficiency depends on trust, and many executives don't feel equipped to build that trust. Businessolver's own summary says growth pressure is pushing leaders toward efficiency over employee experience and short-term gains over long-term culture. If the main purpose of AI is to cut jobs, asking employees to embrace it means asking them to help with their own replacement. Zaki puts this sharply: few people get excited about training the system meant to replace them.11

The adoption backdrop

The stakes are rising because AI use is spreading quickly but unevenly. Gallup reports that half of employed U.S. adults now use AI in their jobs at least a few times a year, and 13% use it daily. Only 41% say their organization has built AI tools into how it operates. Gallup also finds that frequent users report productivity gains, but only about one in ten employees at AI-adopting organizations strongly agree that AI has changed how work gets done. Leaders are more likely than individual contributors to report big productivity gains: 21% versus 13%. That repeats the gap between executives and staff that Zaki describes.

Worries about job loss are rising alongside adoption. Eighteen percent of U.S. employees think it is at least somewhat likely that AI or automation will eliminate their job within five years. Among those whose employers have adopted AI, the figure is 23%. Businessolver found that workers who are anxious about AI are more likely to report mental health problems.14

The optimism gap also falls along demographic lines. In Businessolver's data, 67% of men are optimistic about AI's effect on their future, compared with 55% of women. Gen X workers are the least optimistic generation.14 Senior managers are more upbeat than middle managers, 73% to 60%.14 Middle managers are the people most expected to deliver the empathy, so their lower confidence is a warning sign.

A complication from Europe

Not all the evidence points one way. An OECD policy brief from June 2026 looked at managers using algorithmic-management software in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Twenty percent said the technology had reduced their need for empathy; only 12% said it had increased it. That small group could mean AI frees managers from monitoring tasks so they have more time for coaching. Or it could mean the software is starting to replace the interpersonal work through which managers used to understand their teams. The OECD has not concluded which.

If the second reading turns out to be right, it would weaken the empathy-first argument. The same tools companies want workers to adopt could make it easier for managers to skip the human contact that, according to Businessolver's data, drives adoption.

What to make of it

The reading here is that empathy is not a soft add-on to AI strategy. The evidence suggests it decides whether AI tools are used well or just tolerated. Even allowing for the survey's limits, the results agree across very different studies: vendor surveys, Gallup's national tracking and academic work on psychological safety. Workers who trust their leaders say they get better training, feel more in control and worry less about their jobs. Workers who don't trust their leaders hold back, produce low-quality AI output or quietly resist.

The practical advice is simple. Zaki recommends shaping AI strategy with employees instead of announcing it to them, and training frontline managers, who are increasingly seen as the people who set workplace empathy.11 Kruse cites University of Chicago research by Nicholas Epley and colleagues. Across 25 experiments, trying to imagine another person's point of view did not reliably improve accuracy, but asking them directly did.15 For managers rolling out AI tools, that means asking employees what worries them instead of assuming. Companies that skip this step may still buy the software, but the data suggests their employees won't use it well.