{
  "id": "F-22",
  "url": "https://evy.so/facts/checking-ai-output/",
  "chapter": "What Teams Trust",
  "question": "How often do people check AI output before using it?",
  "answer": "About four in ten AI users regularly use AI output without checking it, by their own account: 44 percent of AI-using employees across 47 countries do not verify its accuracy most of the time, and knowledge workers report no critical thinking on 41 percent of their AI-assisted tasks. 56 percent of AI-using employees say AI has caused a mistake in their work at least once.",
  "range": {
    "low": 41,
    "high": 44,
    "unit": "% of AI users, or of their AI-assisted tasks, where output is used without routine checking",
    "display": "41–44% of AI users, or of their AI tasks, go without routine checking (self-reported)"
  },
  "confidence": "medium",
  "confidence_reason": "Two independent creators with very different methods land on almost the same figure, one counting people and one counting tasks. Both are self-reports, which likely understate careless use, and the observed studies are small or older.",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-14",
  "how_to_read": "Most of this is self-reported, and people likely flatter themselves. KPMG counts people, Lee and colleagues count tasks. Checking depends on how easy it is: developers can run code, so only about 10% use AI answers as-is, while KPMG finds that people who trust AI more check less. The only observed studies are a 2023 writing experiment and a small 2025 trial of 16 developers, who accepted under 44% of AI code suggestions.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "creator": "University of Melbourne and KPMG International",
      "title": "Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence: A global study 2025",
      "year": 2025,
      "sample": "32,352 employed people in 47 countries, November 2024 to January 2025",
      "method": "Online survey of employees who use AI at work, self-reported frequency",
      "figure": "56% verify AI accuracy most of the time or always, so 44% do not; 42% rely on output without evaluating it sometimes or more often (66% ever)",
      "url": "https://mbs.edu/-/media/PDF/Research/Trust_in_AI_Report.pdf",
      "quote": "Two in three report relying on AI output without evaluating the information it provides"
    },
    {
      "creator": "Hao-Ping (Hank) Lee and colleagues, Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University",
      "title": "The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking (CHI 2025)",
      "year": 2025,
      "sample": "319 knowledge workers using AI at least weekly, describing 936 real tasks",
      "method": "Online survey; for each task, whether the worker did any critical thinking such as verifying or editing",
      "figure": "Critical thinking reported on 59.3% of tasks, so none on 40.7%; higher confidence in AI predicted less critical thinking",
      "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf",
      "quote": "Our participants self-reported to have enacted critical thinking for 555 (59.29%) of the examples"
    },
    {
      "creator": "Stack Overflow",
      "title": "2026 Developer Survey: AI data",
      "year": 2026,
      "sample": "13,162 developers answering this question, June to August 2026",
      "method": "Opt-in survey; what developers usually do with an AI answer, several answers allowed",
      "figure": "9.6% use AI answers as-is; 76.5% run the code, 63.9% compare it with the codebase",
      "url": "https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/ai/data",
      "quote": "Only 10% use answers as-is."
    },
    {
      "creator": "Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang (MIT)",
      "title": "Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence",
      "year": 2023,
      "sample": "444 college-educated professionals in an online writing experiment, early 2023",
      "method": "Self-report plus observed activity on the platform; not participants' real jobs",
      "figure": "68% said they submitted ChatGPT's first output unedited, and were active for about 3 minutes after pasting it in",
      "url": "https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Noy_Zhang_1.pdf",
      "quote": "68% of treated participants report submitting ChatGPT’s initial output without editing it"
    }
  ],
  "related_findings": [
    {
      "question": "How many workers have made mistakes because of AI?",
      "answer": "Between about a third and a half of AI users. 56% of AI-using employees across 47 countries say they have made a mistake in their work because of AI, and 31% say it happens sometimes or more often. In a small 2026 US poll, 30% said a wrong AI answer had caused a problem in their work. Noticing errors is more common still: 66% of developers report AI answers that are almost right, but not quite.",
      "confidence": "low",
      "sources": [
        {
          "creator": "Kolmogorov Law, poll on Pollfish",
          "title": "Half of U.S. Workers Know They Would Be Personally Liable for a Wrong AI Answer",
          "year": 2026,
          "sample": "500 employed US adults who use AI for work, September 2026, unweighted",
          "method": "Online poll commissioned by a law firm; treat as indicative",
          "figure": "30% say a wrong AI answer has caused a problem in their work; 65% do not always verify AI answers",
          "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/half-of-us-workers-know-they-would-be-personally-liable-for-a-wrong-ai-answer-two-thirds-still-dont-always-check-kolmogorov-law-survey-finds-302867898.html",
          "quote": "a wrong or inaccurate AI answer has caused a problem in their work"
        },
        {
          "creator": "Stack Overflow",
          "title": "2025 Developer Survey: AI",
          "year": 2025,
          "sample": "25,332 developers answering the frustrations question",
          "method": "Opt-in online survey, several answers allowed",
          "figure": "66% cite AI answers that are almost right, but not quite; 45.2% say debugging AI code takes more time",
          "url": "https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/ai",
          "quote": "AI solutions that are almost right, but not quite"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "question": "Do AI mistakes reach customers?",
      "answer": "Sometimes. A quarter of IT leaders (25%) say AI mistakes have already hurt customers or clients, 23% that they cost the company money, and 16% that they seriously disrupted operations. Of employees who review colleagues' AI work, 79% regularly receive output that is low quality or contains errors.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "creator": "GoTo with Workplace Intelligence",
          "title": "The Pulse of Work in 2026",
          "year": 2026,
          "sample": "1,250 knowledge workers and 1,250 IT decision-makers in 10 countries, November 2025 to January 2026",
          "method": "Online survey. GoTo sells IT and communications software.",
          "figure": "25% of IT leaders say AI mistakes hurt customers; 79% of employees who review colleagues' AI work regularly get flawed output",
          "url": "https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/gototechnol00e8-mktglobalxm07e7-mktglobalpr9498-b870/media/goto/pdfs/ebook/ebook_pulse-of-work-2026.pdf",
          "quote": "around one-quarter of IT leaders say AI has made mistakes that affected customers"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "numbers_you_may_have_seen": [
    {
      "claim": "Two thirds of employees use AI output without checking it (KPMG).",
      "what_the_source_says": "66% have done so at least once, including rarely. Doing it sometimes or more often is 42%, and 56% verify accuracy most of the time."
    },
    {
      "claim": "57% of workers have made mistakes because of AI (KPMG).",
      "what_the_source_says": "The global report says 56%, counting anyone who did so even once. Sometimes or more often is 31%."
    },
    {
      "claim": "AI is destroying critical thinking (Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon).",
      "what_the_source_says": "The study measured 319 workers' own sense of effort and whether they thought critically. It did not test thinking skills or show a decline over time."
    },
    {
      "claim": "77% of employees review AI work as carefully as human work (Workday).",
      "what_the_source_says": "The 77% covers only employees who use AI every day, at companies with more than $100 million in revenue, in a vendor survey."
    },
    {
      "claim": "66% of developers spend more time fixing AI code (Stack Overflow).",
      "what_the_source_says": "66% cite answers that are almost right; 45.2% say debugging AI code takes more time."
    }
  ],
  "citation": "EVY (2026). How often do people check AI output before using it? The AI at Work Fact Book, F-22. https://evy.so/facts/checking-ai-output/ (last checked October 14, 2026). CC BY 4.0.",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0"
}