The AI Proficiency Crisis: Enterprise AI Investments Jump While AI Skills Flatline

Section’s 2025 AI Proficiency Report: Enterprises are investing in AI, but workforce proficiency is stuck in neutral – raising doubts about enterprise ROI

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Section’s latest AI Proficiency Report reveals that workforce AI proficiency remains dire, despite companies investing in AI deployments at a higher rate over the last 6 months. Since September 2024, employees’ general AI proficiency has flatlined, with only 10% of the workforce scoring as AI-proficient.

The survey of 5,013 knowledge workers across the U.S., U.K. and Canada – spanning individual contributors to C-suite members – measured respondents on their knowledge, usage, and skill with generative AI tools.

The research found that the vast majority of the workforce (90%) doesn’t write effective prompts, know how AI works, or use it regularly.

“Despite minor progress, there’s still too much friction for employees to get value from AI,” says Greg Shove, CEO of Section. “When 25% of the workforce doesn’t know what to use AI for, companies will not get ROI.”

60% of companies mandate or encourage the use of AI at work, but only 43% provide training, only 35% have clear AI policies, and only 23% have deployed an LLM to all employees. Most of these investments are reserved for leadership – with individual contributors being the least likely to have LLM access, AI tool reimbursement, and AI training.

“Our research echoes what we hear from enterprise organizations: They’ve rolled out ChatGPT to leadership or a few groups, and stopped there,” Shove says. “Without widespread deployment, AI vendors will start seeing churn, CEOs will get frustrated by lack of ROI, and workers will be left to figure it out for themselves.”

Key findings are highlighted below, and the full results can be found here:

The vast majority of workers are not proficient AI users – but they think they are.

• 90% of workers are AI “skeptics, novices, and experimenters,” meaning they have poor prompting skills, use AI irregularly, and don’t know how AI works.
• Only 10% of the knowledge workforce scored as AI-proficient, yet 54% scored themselves as proficient AI users.
• 25% of employees don’t know what to use AI for. 28% don’t know how to use it at all.

Company investments have increased, but not enough.

• 71% of companies approve of AI use at work but nearly half (48%) have not deployed an LLM.
• Companies are 12% more likely to reimburse for tools than last year but 35% of the workforce is still paying for AI tools out of pocket.
• 9% of companies still ban AI completely – though 32% of employees at companies with AI bans still use it.

Functions prime for AI disruption aren’t using AI to its full effect.

• HR, the most likely role to own AI upskilling, scores 3.3 out of 10 in prompting ability, and nearly 40% of HR professionals use AI once a month or less.
• Customer service is the least-proficient function, and 43% say they rarely or never use it.

Excitement is up – but it’s still outweighed by anxiety and overwhelm.

• The percentage of employees who say they’re excited about AI has doubled since September 2024, from 23% to 46%.
• But fear is still the predominant emotion, with 54% saying they’re anxious or overwhelmed by AI and 32% saying they’re afraid of losing their jobs.

Section’s CEO, Greg Shove, will be unpacking the full results of the survey, and what they mean for knowledge workers and leaders, in a live webinar tomorrow, June 11 at 12 pm ET.

About Section

Section is an AI transformation and upskilling partner that works with businesses to create custom solutions for AI benchmarking, upskilling, and workflow redesign. Founded in 2019 by Scott Galloway, and led by serial entrepreneur Greg Shove, Section is backed by General Catalyst, Learn Capital, GSV Ventures, Activant, and other individual investors, including Jeff Bewkes and Tim Armstrong. Since its inception, Section has partnered with 300+ enterprise businesses and upskilled 58,000 knowledge workers.