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If you’ve started to wonder whether you’re leaning on artificial intelligence a little too much at work, you’re in good company.
Half of employees say they rely too much on AI, according to research from GoTo and Workplace Intelligence, where I am the managing partner. In our survey of 2,500 employees and IT leaders, 39% of employees said AI is making them less intelligent, 41% believe it will hurt their long-term career prospects, and 30% said they can no longer function at work without it.
I’ve spent over a decade researching how technology reshapes careers, and what this data tells me is that we’re at an inflection point. AI isn’t going away, and fighting it isn’t the answer. But neither is handing your career over to it.
The workers who are going to come out ahead are the ones who learn to use AI as a partner, not a crutch. That starts with developing three specific habits.
1. Audit your AI use once a week
One of the reasons so many workers feel AI is eroding their skills is that they’re being pushed to use it regardless of whether a task calls for it; 60% of workers in our survey said they feel pressured to use AI to boost their productivity. All that pressure left unchecked becomes a bad habit.
A simple weekly audit can help break that cycle. Keep a running list on your phone or a sticky note on your desk of every task you hand off to AI. At the end of the week, spend 10 minutes looking back at where you used AI and asking two questions:
- Did it improve the outcome?
- Could I have done this myself?
Instead of trying to cut AI out entirely, stay honest about where it’s adding value and saving time versus where you’re outsourcing thinking you should be doing.
2. Do the hard tasks yourself first
Our research found that 70% of employees admit to improperly using AI for sensitive or high-stakes work that requires emotional intelligence or sound judgment, from navigating difficult conversations to making decisions with real consequences. Those are the very tasks where doing the work yourself is how you improve.
Before turning to AI, spend at least 15 minutes on it yourself. Write the first draft. Think through the argument. Then use AI to pressure-test or refine your work, rather than having it build the thing from scratch.
In our survey, 43% of employees admitted to using AI outputs even when they suspected they contained errors or fake information. Nearly a third (31%) said they felt an unspoken pressure to trust AI and keep quiet about its mistakes, and 14% said they reported AI errors to a manager but were told to stay quiet.
Judgment is a skill that atrophies without practice. The workers and leaders who will remain valuable as AI gets more capable aren’t the ones who can prompt an output and run with it, but the ones who can tell when an output is wrong, incomplete, or missing something the situation demands, and do something about it.
3. Build the skills AI can’t replicate
Use the time AI frees up to practice being more distinctly human.
In our research, employees said the skills that will matter most in an AI-driven workplace are creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and judgment — including knowing when to trust AI and when to override it. These are the skills that will separate workers who thrive from those who plateau.
Pick one of those areas to develop each quarter. If you’re client-facing, put yourself in situations that require reading a room or navigating disagreement 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 think or what an AI chatbot tells you.
Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author, future of work expert, keynote speaker, and the managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, an award-winning thought leadership and research agency 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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