71% of Workers Feel Unprepared for AI

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Your employees don’t need to build the next GPT, but they DO need to know what it is.

While 94% of employees say they’re familiar with AI tools, only 29% feel fully supported in using them at work, according to McKinsey’s latest report. Meanwhile, AI usage has doubled across U.S. workplaces in just two years.

The disconnect between familiarity and fluency is turning into a crisis of competence that’s threatening ROI, adoption, and morale. Let’s get into it.

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AI Fluency Is the New Literacy Test

It turns out the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t infrastructure, budget, or compliance, it’s comprehension.

According to McKinsey, 94% of workers say they’re familiar with AI tools, but only 29% feel fully supported using them. Meanwhile, AI usage has nearly doubled in just two years. Enterprise leaders are rolling out copilots and automation tools at full tilt, but many employees are still just smiling and nodding, unsure how the tools actually work or when to use them. The result is a fluency gap that could undermine billions in AI investments.

Here’s the core issue: businesses are investing in AI, but not in AI fluency. That’s like giving employees a Bloomberg Terminal and expecting them to predict the stock market. The tool’s powerful, but only if you know what you’re looking at.

Here’s what the data shows:

• 70% of workers with high AI literacy expect positive outcomes using AI, but only 29% of low-literacy workers feel the same.

• AI use has nearly doubled since 2023, especially among managers and senior leaders.

• But only 38% of companies provide formal AI training, even though 82% of leaders say AI skills are essential.

That’s a gap wide enough to fit the elephant in the room through.

It’s also a setup for wasted investments, poor change adoption, and rising resentment from teams who feel overwhelmed and underprepared.

Why this matters for enterprise leaders:

1. AI doesn’t just need engineering. It needs enablement.
   Think: training, onboarding, internal comms, and support materials. Just like the early cloud transition.

2. Employees are asking for help—quietly.
   Many won’t raise their hand to say they don’t understand how the tools work. But they’ll resist using them or revert to old workflows.

3. Fluency boosts ROI.
   Companies with even basic AI literacy programs see faster adoption and better use cases from teams in marketing, ops, HR, and finance.

What the best teams are doing:

• Embedding AI education into onboarding and role-specific upskilling

• Creating AI “champions” on each team to support adoption

• Giving non-technical folks sandbox environments to test tools risk-free

• Partnering with external L&D firms or running internal office hours

The takeaway: people don’t fear AI, they fear looking dumb using it. Train well, and adoption follows.

News Roundup

1. Apple’s AI Brain Drain Continues
Four top AI leaders just defected from Apple to OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic. The race for talent is heating up and big names are losing.
Read more →

2. Fairfax County 911 Gets an AI Co-Pilot
Fairfax, Virginia is testing AI for non-emergency 911 calls. The goal: Speed up triage and free up human responders for urgent calls.
Read more →

3. Pentagon’s AI Wargames Stir Debate
A deep dive from Politico into how the Pentagon is training AI models for nuclear escalation scenarios. If that makes you sweat, same here.
Read more →

TL;DR:

• 94% of workers say they’re familiar with AI, but only 29% feel supported using it at work.

• Organizations are doubling AI deployment but failing to train teams, creating a fluency gap.

• Fluency predicts sentiment: workers with high AI literacy are 2x as optimistic about its impact.

• Apple’s top AI leaders are fleeing to rivals, Fairfax County is automating 911 calls, and the Pentagon is giving AI a seat at the nuclear strategy table.

Cheers to building workplaces where every team member knows how to use the tech they’re being handed, or feels comfortable enough to ask questions on how.

Stay sharp,

Cat Valverde
Founder, Enterprise AI Solutions
Navigating Tomorrow’s Tech Landscape Together