Why CEOs' AI hype isn't landing with employees
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Business leaders are struggling to tell their AI story to employees, shareholders, customers and regulators as skepticism of the technology grows.
Why it matters: If they can't message it, they certainly won't be able to implement it and prove its return on investment.
- And so far, that's proving true.
State of play: CEOs are bullish on AI as a productivity booster, but across employee bases, skepticism, skills gaps and unclear use cases are slowing adoption — exposing a growing disconnect between what leaders want and what's actually happening.
- According to an MIT study, 95% of businesses are failing to implement AI, showing zero return despite the large enterprise investment in generative AI tools.
- This is due in part to communication hurdles — particularly apprehension and confusion across the employee base. According to a study from AI consulting firm Section, clear access to tools and training is still lacking for most employees.
- Because of this, they see little time-savings or efficiencies from these tools.
- A recent Workday survey found that 8 in 10 respondents saved one to seven hours a week by using AI, but about 37% of that time savings was lost to correcting or reworking the AI output.
Plus, there are concerns that AI adoption leads to job losses for both white- and blue-collar workers.
- Last year, more than 55,000 layoffs in the U.S. were attributed to AI, according to a study from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
- Meanwhile, companies like Amazon, Dow, HP, Mastercard, UPS and Workday have trimmed their workforces — or have announced plans to — with many citing AI.
Zoom in: Business executives are continuing to talk more about AI's impact on the workforce with investors.
- Mentions of "agentic AI," "AI workforce," "digital labor," and "AI agents" were up 4,425% from Q4 of 2023 to Q4 of 2025.
- With earnings season just underway, there have already been more than 100 mentions.
Between the lines: This is creating a major roadblock to AI implementation and causing individual contributors (68%) and managers (46%) feel anxious or overwhelmed by AI, per Section's study.
- At a recent Axios event in Davos — under the Chatham House rule — communication leaders connected a lack of trust to the lack of implementation.
- "I think there's a curve of trust, and we really need to understand how our people see themselves and their work relative to AI," one comms executive from a tech company said. "Most of the conversations that I've had here have been less about AI the technology and more about communicating to build trust, thinking about how people work."
- "We've massaged the messaging. But it's always been very important for us, from a reputation perspective and from a trust perspective, to talk about AI's impact on jobs really clearly, because it will dramatically shift our workforce," another comms executive said.
- To help bridge the divide, some leaders are dedicating their entire learning and development budgets to AI upskilling and trainings, while others are bringing on an AI operations role to help identify how the tech can best support communications.
Between the lines: According to a recent Burson reputation study, companies with AI people strategies outperformed those using AI solely as a tech strategy by 11.8%.
- But to understand how AI agents might automate work and support employees, managers must understand the workflows of their teams, which many are hesitant to disclose.
What they're saying: "The gap between AI messaging to shareholders and employees isn't a communications problem; it's a trust problem," says Ethan McCarty, CEO of Integral. "When the investor deck says 'efficiency' and the town hall says 'empowerment,' employees hear doublespeak. They're not wrong."
- This creates an opportunity for communications teams to not just craft the message but to deploy the strategy, McCarty adds. "Employee communications folks are being enlisted to do things that would otherwise have been called change management back in the day."
What to watch: CEOs should be on guard as AI skepticism is likely to show up at the ballot box in 2026 and beyond.
- A new report from conservative think tank the Institute for Family Studies found that most Trump voters want more AI regulation.
- Threats of rising electricity bills, children's online safety and job loss are populist issues that could turn AI into a political wedge issue.
What's next: While CEOs have struggled with their AI messaging internally, that hasn't stopped them from flexing in front of investors during earnings season.
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