If you’re starting to wonder if you’re relying too much on artificial intelligence at work, you’re in good hands.
According to research from GoTo and Workplace Intelligence, where I am a managing partner, half of employees say they rely too much on AI. In a survey of 2,500 employees and IT leaders, 39% of employees said AI was making them less intelligent, 41% believed it would negatively impact their long-term career prospects, and 30% said they could no longer work without AI.
For more than a decade, I’ve been researching how technology is reshaping careers. What this data tells us is that we are at a tipping point. AI is not going away, and fighting it is not the answer. But don’t hand over your career to it either.
The next generation of workers will be those who learn to use AI as a partner rather than a crutch. It starts with developing three specific habits.
1. Audit your AI usage once a week
One reason why so many workers feel their skills are being undermined by AI is because they are forced to use AI regardless of whether the task requires it. In our research, 60% of employees said they feel pressured to use AI to increase productivity. If you let this pressure go unchecked, it can become a bad habit.
A simple weekly audit can help break this cycle. Keep a running list of all the tasks you want to hand off to AI on your phone or on a sticky note on your desk. At the end of the week, take 10 minutes to reflect on where you used AI and ask these two questions:
Did your results improve? Could you have done this yourself?
Rather than trying to eliminate AI completely, stay honest about where it is adding value and saving time, and where you are outsourcing it because you think it should be done.
2. Do difficult tasks yourself first.
Our research shows that 70% of employees admit to using AI inappropriately for sensitive or high-stakes jobs that require emotional intelligence and sound judgment, from navigating difficult conversations to making decisions with real consequences. These are exactly the tasks that you get better at by doing the work yourself.
Spend at least 15 minutes yourself before relying on AI. Write the first draft. Let’s think through the argument thoroughly. You can then use AI to pressure test and refine your work, rather than having it build from scratch.
In our research, 43% of employees admitted to using AI output even when they suspected it contained errors or false information. Nearly a third (31%) said they felt implicit pressure to trust AI and keep quiet about its mistakes, and 14% said they reported an AI error to a manager but were told to keep quiet.
Judgment is a skill that withers away if you don’t practice it. The workers and leaders who will continue to be valuable even as AI capabilities improve are not those who can drive output and do it, but those who can recognize when the output is wrong, incomplete, or missing something the situation demands and do something about it.
3. Acquire skills that cannot be imitated by AI
Use the time freed up by AI to practice being more human.
According to our research, employees say the skills that will be most important in an AI-driven workplace are creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and judgment. This includes knowing when to trust AI and when to disable it. These are the skills that separate workers who thrive from those who stagnate.
Choose one area to develop each quarter. If you’re working with a client, put yourself in situations where you have to read the room or deal with disagreements without a script. If you’re in a more analytical role, practice forming and defending your own point of view before looking at what others are thinking or what an AI chatbot is saying.
Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author, future of work expert, keynote speaker, and managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, an award-winning thought leadership and research organization focused on the world of work. He is the author of three career books: “Back to Human,” “Promote Yourself,” and “Me 2.0.”
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