Workers bypass AI as trust gap widens, WalkMe warns

WalkMe has published its State of Digital Adoption 2026 report, which found a wide gap between how executives and employees view artificial intelligence at work.

The survey covered 3,750 executives and employees across 14 countries at enterprises with 1,000 or more staff. It found that 54% of workers had bypassed AI tools and completed tasks manually at least once in the past 30 days.

Another 33% said they had not used AI at all during that period, pointing to resistance to workplace AI despite heavy corporate spending on digital tools.

Workers reported losing 7.9 hours a week to digital frustrations, equating to 51 working days a year lost to technology friction. That was up 42% from the 36 days reported in 2025, reversing an earlier improvement from 43 days in 2024.

Digital investment rose 38% from the previous year, while 40% of that spending underperformed, according to the report. It also found a sharp divide between senior management and staff on whether AI and workplace tools were delivering results.

Trust Gap

Only 9% of workers said they trusted AI for complex, business-critical decisions, compared with 61% of executives. On tool adequacy, 88% of executives said employees had adequate tools, while just 21% of workers agreed.

The same pattern appeared in views on productivity. While 81% of executives said AI had significantly improved productivity, employees continued to report large amounts of time lost dealing with workplace systems.

Dan Adika, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of WalkMe, said the issue was not the underlying technology.

"The problem is not AI's capability. The technology will keep improving. What won't improve on its own is the human side: the trust gap, the governance gap, the question of who acts, when, and with what guardrails. That's what this data is really showing. And that problem doesn't go away as AI gets smarter. It gets harder," Adika said.

Shadow AI

The findings also pointed to widespread use of unauthorised AI tools. At least 45% of workers said they had used unsanctioned AI products in the past 30 days, while 36% said they had done so with confidential data.

At the same time, 78% of executives said they wanted to discipline shadow AI use, yet only 21% of workers said they had ever been warned about AI policies. A further 34% said they did not know which AI tools their employer approved.

The report also highlighted a contradiction in executive attitudes. While many leaders said they wanted to curb unauthorised AI use, 62% agreed that the risk of shadow AI was overstated compared with the risk of failing to make enough use of AI in the first place.

Keith Kirkpatrick, Vice President and Research Director of Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows at The Futurum Group, linked the problem to gaps in approved systems and internal rules.

"The use of shadow AI isn't a behavior to penalize; rather, it's an opportunity to address a systemic gap. When employees use unapproved AI tools, they're compensating for performance or efficiency gaps left by sanctioned tools and unclear governance. Organisations that close this gap by equipping AI with real-time context, cross-application reach, and robust guardrails will ultimately realize the strongest return on their AI investments," Kirkpatrick said.

Alongside the survey, WalkMe analysed millions of workflows across thousands of enterprise applications. The combined findings suggest workplace AI adoption remains uneven, with many companies still struggling to align investment, governance and employee use.

The study was based on responses from 1,700 senior leaders and 2,050 office and hybrid workers.