When you buy AI, your employees will come and see it, but it won’t necessarily change the way they work. To do this, you may need to involve human resources.
IT consultancy Gartner says as much in its recent report, “A Manager’s Guide to Effectively Integrating AI into Employee Operations.”
According to Enterprise Whisperer, a July 2025 survey of nearly 3,000 employees showed that 46% of managers are experimenting with AI to improve their operations, compared to just 26% of employees.
A separate study conducted at the same time found that only 14% of managers said they faced no challenges encouraging their teams to use AI. In other words, AI tools don’t sell themselves (except perhaps for software development).
This leads Carmen von Rohr, senior principal of human resources operations at Gartner, to conclude that chief human resources officers are relying too much on employees to integrate AI tools into their work. To improve AI adoption, CHROs should focus on supporting managers in making the organizational changes needed to meet senior leadership expectations.
Gartner claims that implementing AI requires more change management than any previous technology.
In other words, HR leaders need to focus on communication and consideration of employee needs. When managers rush to implement business transformation plans, they risk creating “operational and emotional resistance” among employees. Just as asking IT professionals to train overseas replacements risks a revolt, encouraging employees to adopt AI coworking can create a backlash, especially if it involves layoffs.
Given that 46% of U.S. voters believe AI will have a negative impact on the economy, according to a recent Data for Progress poll, some forethought seems prudent.
Gartner plans to engage CHROs to support managers in their AI integration efforts by considering the needs and expectations of different teams when it comes to AI training and support. HR leaders also need to prepare managers for potential emotional resistance from employees and to effectively communicate with senior leaders who may not have realistic expectations.
Additionally, the consultancy believes it is the role of HR leaders to define how to allocate the potential for AI-related productivity gains, a return on investment that the majority of CEOs have yet to realize.
This recommendation is based on a July 2025 Gartner survey of 114 HR leaders, which found that only 7% of organizations provide guidance on how to take advantage of the time savings provided by AI tools.
And before answering that question, companies must resolve internal disagreements about how to allocate the projected time savings. The study found that 55 percent of HR leaders wanted to apply the time saved to projects outside of their core responsibilities, compared to only 28 percent of managers.
But at a time when organizations are still struggling to sell AI to their employees, it seems premature to discuss how AI’s supposed productivity benefits will be used. ®
