Young fear AI the most, but should we believe the hype?

Youngsters’ love of technology appears to be seriously challenged the moment they enter the workforce, with four in five believing AI could soon replace humans in most areas of work, although it seems official figures show take-up is not quite as widespread as we have been led to believe.

That is the stark conclusion of two reports, one Propel Tech, the other by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology.

The Propel Tech survey, which quizzed more than 1,000 professionals across sectors, found 80% of junior staff in UK firms worry about AI’s impact on their jobs, compared to 65% of senior leaders, a sign of a rapidly emerging divide over AI’s impact on the workplace.

Across three years of surveys, Propel Tech has found a trend in early-career professionals’ viewing AI as deeply personal – affecting wellbeing, work quality and long-term employability. Senior leaders, by contrast, are more likely to frame AI as a strategic capability, a source of analytics, efficiency and organisational control.

This perception gap is most pronounced in sectors where AI threatens to radically change human roles. Respondents in the public sector, healthcare and education, for example, report the highest levels of concern, with up to 80% believing AI could replace jobs and 75% worried it could cause more harm than good.

Meanwhile, technology and professional services organisations report lower levels of fear, being sectors where AI is more commonly seen as an augmentation tool rather than a threat.

Geography is another issue. While four in five professionals in the South report having worked on AI projects, exposure drops to around seven in ten in the North and Midlands and closer to two-thirds in Wales and Scotland, leaving up to a third of workers in some regions with little experience.

Propel Tech said its findings highlight a “clear regional gradient” in AI outcomes. Nearly half of projects in the South, for instance, are reported as successful or progressing well, compared with around a third in the North and Midlands, and even lower in Wales and Scotland.

The firm suggests this is evidence that where AI delivers results, confidence follows, but where projects struggle or expose data weaknesses, anxiety grows, reinforcing the idea that the UK’s AI challenge is not just about adoption, but about capability, infrastructure and readiness across regional ecosystems.

Propel Tech co-founder Andy Brown said: “As AI adoption accelerates, the study highlights a clear lesson for business and public-sector leaders alike: closing the perception gap is as important as improving the technology itself. AI systems designed around real workflows, transparent trade-offs and human outcomes are far more likely to build trust than those delivered top-down.”

Meanwhile, a Department for Science, Innovation & Technology report paints a slightly different picture, revealing that, nationwide, adoption of AI is currently still modest, with just one in six businesses using the technology, and most currently having no active plans to do so.

Naturally, AI adoption varies by size and sector, with large and mid-sized businesses more likely to be using it, as are those in the information and communication, finance and real estate and business services/administration sectors.

However, a lack of identified need and limited AI skills are the most commonly cited barriers to AI adoption, but ethical concerns are deemed more significant.

The good news is that most businesses using AI report an increase in workforce productivity; the bad news is most have not yet experienced any change in revenue.