UK workers spend nearly £1 billion of their own money on AI for work, Deloitte finds
FILE PHOTO: A banner shows message reading “AI” during the London Tech Week at Olympia, in London, Britain, June 8, 2026. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
LONDON, Sept 16 : One is six workers in Britain is paying for an AI tool to help them do their job, at a total cost of nearly £1 billion ($1.4 billion) a year of their own money, according to research published by Deloitte on Wednesday.
• The inaugural GenAI Workforce Survey found that two thirds of workers had tried AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, and nearly a quarter were using them daily in their jobs.
• Workers were adopting AI faster than their employers were making tools available, the responses suggested.
• Some 31 per cent of people surveyed were using GenAI without their employers’ knowledge — known as shadow AI — and 17 per cent were paying to use at least one GenAI tool themselves for work.
![]()
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
![]()
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
![]()
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
![]()
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
![]()
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
• “UK workers are showing they don’t want to wait for permission to use GenAI,” said Deloitte UK’s chief AI officer Hayley McKelvey.
• “Many are already using free tools or pay for premium versions themselves to help them get work done.”
• The most popular uses for AI at work were searching for information, drafting emails and creating summaries, the survey found, saving on average 70 minutes a week.
• Deloitte partner Paul Lee said GenAI had quickly become part of everyday working life. “Yet for many workers its role remains relatively basic, focused on searching for information and drafting content rather than supporting more complex work,” he said.
• “The organisations that gain the greatest advantage from AI will be those that move beyond simply providing access to tools and focus on helping people use them with the appropriate guardrails and purpose,” he added.
• Some 25,000 workers were surveyed by Ipsos for Deloitte.($1 = 0.7417 pounds)
Source: Reuters
Sign up for our newsletters

Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app

Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST














