Forrester data shows worker AI readiness stalled despite tool rollouts

MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES — Employee proficiency in artificial intelligence (AI), known as AIQ, has failed to meaningfully improve over the past year, creating a productivity bottleneck, according to Forrester.

J.P. Gownder, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Forrester’s Future of Work team, notes, “Employers aren’t successfully equipping their employees with the understanding, skills, and ethics to succeed in a world of AI.”

Stagnant skills hinder productivity

Gownder writes that although more money has been invested in AI applications, the core competencies needed to be used effectively have not changed very significantly. 

The report reveals that the proportion of workers who know and can use prompt engineering, a competence at the core of tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot and Google Workspace with Gemini, increased by a small percentage, from 22% in 2024 to 26% in 2025. 

This stagnation has a direct negative effect on the productivity gains organizations aim to achieve when adopting these technologies.

When employees lack sufficient AIQ, their usage of deployed tools often results in negative outcomes rather than efficiency gains. 

Forrester notes that individuals with low AIQ may abandon the tools entirely or misuse them, leading to scenarios where workers must redo work that AI performed incorrectly. 

Moreover, the lack of competence to question AI results or make ethical choices will leave employees frustrated, making it impossible to justify the software licenses already purchased.

Employers overlook upskilling and underestimate workforce fears

There is a major mismatch between the deployment of AI tools and the resources needed to employ workers to use them.

Gownder highlights that while a strong majority of AI decision-makers state that their organizations use AI applications, only half report offering AI training for nontechnical employees. 

This approach treats AI as an easy-to-use solution that requires no special skills, a belief Forrester describes as a “lie” that is failing to prepare the workforce.

Concurrently, employee fears regarding job security remain pervasive and are often exacerbated by corporate leadership. 

Forrester’s forecast indicates that very few jobs were actually lost to AI in 2025, and future losses, while meaningful, will not constitute a widespread “job apocalypse.” 

The report notes, “Employee fears are pervasive anyway, sometimes due to public statements by their own CEOs, who engage in pervasive AI washing — that is, blaming financially driven layoffs on AI replacement when AI isn’t the cause,” which further erodes the learning and engagement environment necessary to build AIQ.

The stalled growth in worker AI proficiency signals that the future of work will be defined less by the sophistication of deployed tools than by employers’ willingness to invest in the human skills required to use them effectively.