The gap everyone expects
Every AI rollout has a gap everyone can see: leadership is more enthusiastic than the people who have to use the thing.
Prudential surveyed 3,096 employees and 760 employers this year. 78% of employers view AI positively. 51% of employees do. A 27-point spread, and most of us would have guessed something like it.
The second finding is the one worth sitting with
Asked what holds people back, 25% of employees said they simply do not trust AI. Only 12% of employers believed their people felt that way.
Leadership did not just disagree with the workforce. It underestimated the doubt by half.
Those are not the same kind of problem
A gap in enthusiasm is an argument. Both sides know it is there, and it can be had out in a room.
A gap in awareness is not an argument at all. It is an objection that never gets raised, because the people who would have to answer it do not believe it exists. So the rollout gets designed for a workforce that is merely uninformed — when the workforce is actually unconvinced.
Those two designs look almost identical on a plan and behave nothing alike. One adds explanation. The other has to add evidence, and evidence takes longer and costs more. That is what makes the mistake expensive rather than merely wrong.
Where to start, and it is already half-agreed
In the same study, one concern lands at almost exactly the same rate on both sides: privacy and security. 49% of employers. 52% of employees.
In a survey defined by a 27-point split, that is near-identical. Both groups are already worried about the same thing, and neither is aware the other one is.
That is not a gap to close. It is a conversation that is already half-agreed and nobody has opened — and it is the cheapest possible place to start, because it asks no one to change their mind. Only to find out they were never alone in it.
The first useful step is not a rollout
It is finding out what your people actually believe, rather than what you assume they believe. The distance between 25 and 12 is not a rounding error. It is the entire conversation nobody is having.
Find out where the trust gap actually sits in your organization. The AI Blind Spot Assessment takes about ten minutes: Start the assessment →
Keep reading: Trusted AI · Six hours a week correcting AI
This is the thinking behind a Trusted AI Culture.
Sources: Prudential, 2026 study of 3,096 employees and 760 employers.