Executives Read AI Enthusiasm Wrong by More Than 2x, Survey Finds

Senior executives believe their workforce embraces artificial intelligence. The numbers say otherwise.

In a recent survey of 1,400 U.S.-based employees conducted by researchers at Columbia Business School's Digital Innovation conference team and published in Harvard Business Review on November 26, 2025, 76% of executives reported that their employees feel enthusiastic about AI adoption in their organizations. Among individual contributors — the people actually using the tools — just 31% expressed enthusiasm about adopting AI.

The gap is stark. Leaders are more than two times off the mark in reading their own workforce's sentiment toward the technology they are rolling out.

The findings come from authors Deborah Lovich, Stephan Meier and Chenault Taylor, whose Harvard Business Review article is bluntly titled "Leaders Assume Employees Are Excited About AI. They're Wrong." The survey results were released alongside Columbia Business School's Digital Innovation conference.

The data point cuts against a common corporate narrative. Boards and management teams routinely frame AI deployment as an energizing upgrade. Many organizations, the authors write, have senior leaders holding a positive view of their employees' ability and willingness to use AI. The bottom-up view, the survey shows, is considerably less sunny.

That 45-percentage-point spread matters for execution. Adoption programs built on the assumption of workforce enthusiasm risk misfiring if nearly seven in ten front-line employees are not, in fact, enthusiastic about the technology landing on their desks.

The research adds to a growing body of work in Harvard Business Review on the organizational mechanics of AI rollout. A 2024 HBR article, "For Success with AI, Bring Everyone On Board," argued that inclusive implementation drives results. The new survey data suggests many companies still have not internalized that lesson — at least at the leadership level.

The disconnect sits at the center of the authors' argument: perception gaps between the C-suite and individual contributors are large, measurable and, until now, largely unexamined in firms' AI strategies.

For executives planning AI deployments in 2026, the message is direct. Before scaling the technology, measure actual employee sentiment rather than assuming it. A workforce where less than a third of individual contributors welcome AI is a workforce where adoption targets may quietly fail.