If you buy AI, employees will come and take a look, but they won’t necessarily change the way they work. For that, you may have to get human resources involved.
IT consultancy Gartner says as much in its recent report “Guide Managers to Effectively Integrate AI Into Employees’ Work.”
The enterprise whisperer says that its July 2025 survey of nearly 3,000 employees showed that 46 percent of managers are experimenting with AI to improve their work, compared to just 26 percent of employees.
A separate survey conducted at the same time found that just 14 percent of managers said that they didn’t face any challenges encouraging their teams to use AI. AI tools, in other words, don’t sell themselves (except perhaps in software development).
From this, Carmen von Rohr, senior principal in Gartner’s HR practice, concludes that chief human resource officers have relied too much on employees to integrate AI tools into their jobs. To improve AI adoption, CHROs are advised to focus on supporting managers to undertake the organizational change necessary to meet the expectations of senior leadership.
More than any prior technology, Gartner argues, AI implementation requires change management.
In other words, HR leaders need to focus on communication and sensitivity to employee needs. If managers rush to implement business transformation plans, they risk creating “operational and emotional resistance” among employees. Just as asking IT professionals to train their overseas replacements risks rebellion, urging employees to embrace AI coworking can create pushback, especially if accompanied by layoffs.
Given that 46 percent of US voters believe AI will hurt the economy, according to a recent Data for Progress poll, some forethought seems advisable.
Gartner would have CHROs help managers with their AI integration efforts by looking at the needs and expectations of different teams in terms of AI training and support. HR leaders should also prepare managers for potential emotional resistance from employees and for communicating effectively with senior leaders who may not have realistic expectations.
In addition, the consultancy sees a role for HR leaders in clarifying how potential AI-related productivity gains should be allocated – a return on investment that the majority of CEOs still haven’t seen.
That recommendation follows from a July 2025 Gartner survey of 114 HR leaders that found a mere 7 percent of organizations offer guidance about how one should use time savings derived from AI tools.
And before that question can even be answered, companies need to settle internal disagreements about how projected time saved should be allocated. Based on the survey, 55 percent of HR leaders preferred to see saved time applied to projects outside of core job roles, compared to just 28 percent of managers.
Debating how AI’s supposed productivity bounty will be spent seems premature, however, when organizations are still struggling to sell their workers on AI. ®