Employees doubt AI is as good for them as it is for their employer, Gartner says
Gartner set out three ways HR leaders can use AI for wellbeing after finding employees less convinced the tools are good for them than for their employer. Two of them read staff behaviour, so they depend on data from the employees who doubt the tools.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- Nicole Paripurana, a senior principal analyst in Gartner's HR Practice, made the case for wellbeing uses of AI at the firm's HR Symposium/Xpo in London.
- Gartner's early-warning use would analyse signals such as frequent context-switching, exclusion and shifts in communication tone before problems escalate to burnout.
- Gartner found that fewer than 35% of employees report good levels of overall wellness.
- Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 found global thriving peaked in 2022, then declined before a slight rebound to 34% in 2025.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision Gartner describes risk flags going to leaders and early insights going to employees, so HR has to decide before launch who receives each signal, and that choice settles who the tool appears to serve.
- Who's exposed exposure Swapping periodic surveys for continuous analysis turns employees' communication patterns into a standing HR dataset, and once that data exists it can be put to uses beyond wellbeing.
- What it limits constraint Personalised support runs on preferences and recovery needs that employees choose to share, so it works only where staff already trust the tools to some degree.
Paripurana's case is that HR can point the same tools at employees' own interests. "While AI is often associated with efficiency and automation, organisations can also use AI to support the human side of work," she said [4]. The starting point is narrow. Research has shown that AI's most common workplace use is taking over employees' tasks to ease their workload, hcamag.com reported [11].
Gartner presents its detection work as an improvement on asking people how they feel. "This enhanced visibility enables organisations to move beyond periodic surveys and take a more proactive, data-driven approach to supporting employee wellbeing and empowering healthier employees," the firm said [13]. Staff who already believe AI pays off mainly for the organisation [2] have an obvious objection to that sentence. The benefit it names is visibility, and visibility goes to the employer first. I think the objection is fair, and Paripurana's own list holds the strongest answer to it. AI, she said, can be used "to identify unhealthy work patterns, reduce friction, personalise support, and proactively address wellbeing risks" [5]. I'd expect friction reduction to be the item employees notice most directly. The account hcamag.com published mentions it only in that quote, and it does not put percentages on the gap Gartner found [2][6].
Gallup also tracked how long the strain has lasted. Negative emotions among employees remain elevated compared with before 2020, and Gallup suggested this may mean lasting psychological effects from the pandemic, or a new and more challenging status quo [9].
The decision this quarter is the order of deployment. If detection goes first, the first thing employees experience is the organisation seeing more of how they work. If friction reduction and personalised support go first, HR gives up early signal data. In return, staff get a benefit they can see before anyone asks them to accept analysis of their behaviour. Employees are likely to judge the whole programme next quarter by whichever use reached them first. Even Paripurana's closing argument measures the payoff at the level of the organisation. "The organisations that see the greatest value from AI will be those that use it to improve employee wellbeing, build resilience, and create healthier, more sustainable ways of working," she said [10].
What to watch
- Results from employers that deploy Gartner's early-warning uses, measured against the sub-35% share of employees reporting good overall wellness.
- Gallup's next State of the Global Workplace reading, which will show whether the 2025 rebound to 34% thriving holds.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence30
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+45
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence35
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Gartner's latest findings were presented during its HR Symposium/Xpo in London.
- [2]
Gartner's findings showed employees are 'less convinced' that AI is good for them, despite agreeing that AI is good for their organisation.
- [3]
Nicole Paripurana is a senior principal analyst in the Gartner HR Practice.
- [4]
"While AI is often associated with efficiency and automation, organisations can also use AI to support the human side of work,"
- [5]
"AI can be leveraged by organisations to identify unhealthy work patterns, reduce friction, personalise support, and proactively address wellbeing risks,"
- [6]
Gartner's report identified three ways HR leaders can use AI to improve employee wellbeing: identifying patterns and signals of emerging challenges, identifying and responding to workplace risks, and tailoring the support provided to employees.
- [7]
Gartner found that fewer than 35% of employees report good levels of overall wellness.
- [8]
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 found that global thriving peaked in 2022 and then declined before a slight rebound to 34% in 2025.
- [9]
Employees experiencing negative emotions remained elevated compared with before 2020; Gallup suggested this may mean lasting psychological impacts from the pandemic, or a new and more challenging status quo.
- [10]
"The organisations that see the greatest value from AI will be those that use it to improve employee wellbeing, build resilience, and create healthier, more sustainable ways of working."
- [11]
Research has shown AI is most commonly used to take over employees' tasks to ease their workload.
- [12]
AI can analyse factors such as frequent context-switching, exclusion signals, shifts in communication tone and signs of disengagement to give employees early insights into potential risks before they escalate to burnout, disengagement or reduced performance.
- [13]
"This enhanced visibility enables organisations to move beyond periodic surveys and take a more proactive, data-driven approach to supporting employee wellbeing and empowering healthier employees,"
- [14]
According to Gartner, AI can be used to surface indicators of burnout, excessive workloads, toxic behaviours, bias and boundary violations, enabling leaders to take earlier action to protect employee wellbeing.
- [15]
Gartner says AI can tailor support to employees by better understanding their wellbeing preferences, recovery styles and needs.
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Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- hcamag.comCan AI improve employee wellbeing?
1 article · October 8, 2026
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Topics
- AI in the workplaceFollow
- Employee wellbeingFollow