Majority of workers using AI at work, survey finds

MyPerfectCV has published a survey showing that 58% of workers across five European countries use artificial intelligence at work. It also found that 65% worry their personal data is being used to train AI tools.

The survey of 1,000 employed adults in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy points to broad workplace use of AI, alongside concern about accuracy and oversight. More than a third of respondents, 36%, said they use AI at work at least weekly, including 11% who use it every day and 25% who use it a few times a week.

Another 17% said they use AI a few times a month and 6% said they use it occasionally, while 42% do not use AI at work. The figures suggest AI tools have moved beyond trial use for a sizeable part of the workforce, especially for routine office tasks.

Workplace Use

Among workers who use AI on the job, translation and proofreading were the most common uses at 36%. Research and brainstorming followed at 33%, while 28% use AI for data analysis.

Content creation accounted for 25% of workplace use, followed by task planning at 22%, reporting at 17% and visual or presentation creation at 13%. This range suggests AI is being used across writing, analysis and administrative work rather than for a single narrow function.

Employer attitudes also appear relatively permissive. Some 79% of respondents said their employer allows AI use to some degree, although support is often qualified rather than unrestricted.

Just 26% said their manager openly encourages AI use. A larger group, 53%, said AI is allowed for limited purposes such as research, while 12% said its use is strongly discouraged and 9% said they use AI discreetly because their manager disapproves.

Trust Issues

Trust was a recurring theme in the findings. A total of 58% said they had encountered AI misinformation or errors at work, highlighting limits to confidence in the tools even among regular users.

Fake quotes or non-existent data were cited by 17% of respondents. Another 17% said the systems showed a poor understanding of prompts or context, 14% reported wrong or misleading answers and 9% pointed to low-quality content.

Data privacy concerns ran deeper still. Seventeen per cent said they were very worried about their data being used to train AI, while 48% said they were somewhat worried. A quarter said they were not worried and 10% said they were unaware this was happening.

These responses suggest concern over data use has moved beyond specialist debate and become a mainstream workplace issue. They also indicate that employer policies and tool design may be struggling to keep pace with staff adoption.

"European workers are clearly experimenting with AI and finding value in it, especially for communication and organization," said Dr. Jasmine Escalera, Career Expert at MyPerfectCV.

"At the same time, concerns around accuracy, transparency, and data use show that trust hasn't fully caught up with adoption," Escalera said.

Beyond Work

The survey found that AI use is not confined to the office. Some 73% of respondents said they use AI in their personal lives, compared with 27% who do not.

Travel advice was the most common personal use at 28%, followed by education and studying at 27% and cooking and meal planning at 26%. Shopping recommendations were cited by 21%, while entertainment recommendations and financial planning each stood at 20%.

Home improvement or DIY came in at 19%, physical health at 18% and mental health counselling at 10%. The results suggest many workers are engaging with AI in both professional and personal settings, which may reinforce familiarity while increasing exposure to its shortcomings.

Despite the concerns recorded in the survey, overall sentiment was more positive than negative. Two-thirds of respondents, 66%, said AI's impact on society over the past year had been positive, including 10% who described it as very positive and 56% as somewhat positive.

By contrast, 25% said AI's impact had been somewhat negative and 9% said it had been very negative. The survey was conducted using Pollfish among full-time employed adults and included respondents across age groups, industries and income levels in the five countries surveyed.