A significant proportion of the U.S. workforce is pushing back against Artificial Intelligence adoption at their jobs.

According to a new study by generative AI platform Writer, 31% of employees—including 41% of Gen Z workers—admit to “sabotaging” their company’s AI strategy by refusing to adopt AI tools and applications. As a result, roughly two-third of executives say Generative AI adoption has led to tension and division within their organization, with 42% suggesting it’s “tearing their company apart.”

“There’s active resistance where it’s like, ‘I really don’t believe in this strategy whatsoever, and I’m either going to completely ignore it, or do my own thing,’” says Writer’s chief strategy officer Kevin Chung. “And the passive resistance is often, ‘I’ll give it a try, but I’m not going to put my hand up and say here’s how to improve it. I don’t want to waste my time and effort on it.’”

Different reasons, same results 

As the technology matures, the most common fears associated with AI adoption have evolved, though the end result is still the same. 

“Two years ago, nine times out of 10 it was about ‘why am I training the robot that’s going to take my job away from me?’ and today maybe one or two out of 10 concerns I hear are about job displacement,” Chung says. Instead, he says workers are shying away from the technology because it hasn’t yet proven its usefulness. “Now that they’ve had a chance to play with it, [many employees] are quite disappointed in the results they’ve seen, and that’s why they are disillusioned by it.”

That observation is consistent with another survey of 1,100 executives and managers from 2023. It was conducted by Leadership IQ, wherein just 10% said their employees were “excited” about the technology, and another 35% were “cautiously optimistic.” The remaining 55% were either “in denial,” “resistant,” “reluctant” or “indifferent.”

Though the results haven’t yet been made public, the research and consulting firm’s founder and CEO Mark Murphy says a recent follow-up study (set to be published next month) found similar results.