Why are employees reluctant to disclose AI use to their bosses?
Eric Anicich and Jeslyn Brouwers surveyed 604 US employees who use AI daily. 80% said sharing their AI techniques would help their team, yet about a third had withheld them. People in the lowest trust quartile were about four times as likely to withhold. Their fears were looking less competent, being handed extra work, and showing their job could be automated. Note the research first appeared in HBR in June 2026, so this week’s coverage is a new write-up rather than new data.
Adoption that happens but stays hidden is a pilot-to-production failure that never shows up in official usage data, and leaders cannot see productivity gains they are not shown. The barrier is trust in the organisation, not technology. Whether a technique gets shared again can turn on the first 30 seconds of how a supervisor reacts.
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