Which work tasks do people want AI to do on its own, and which do they want to keep?
Very few want AI working fully on its own: about 2 percent, in two independent studies. People welcome AI help on many tasks, mostly repetitive ones, and most prefer an equal partnership with AI, while keeping decisions about people, communication and creative control.
- Medium confidence
- 3 primary sources
- 2025 to 2026
- Last checked
Every study on one scale
Chart values as text
- Scale: % preferring AI alone or AI in the lead. Shaded range: 2–12%.
- Shao et al., Stanford (2026): 1.9% of occupations: AI alone
- KPMG and Melbourne (2025): 2% AI alone, 12% AI leading
Why medium confidence: Two independent academic studies with different methods agree that only about 2% want AI acting fully alone. Beyond that the measures differ: one covers everyday tasks, the other only decisions about people, and both are stated preferences.
Studies without a figure on this scale are listed in the table only.
Sources
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Future of Work with AI Agents: Auditing Automation and Augmentation Potential across the U.S. Workforce (WORKBank) | Yijia Shao, Erik Brynjolfsson, Diyi Yang and colleagues (Stanford University) | 2026 | 1,500 US workers in 104 occupations rating 844 tasks, January to May 2025 | Online survey with audio interviews; preferred level of human involvement per task. Preprint. | AI handles it entirely is the preferred level in 1.9% of occupations; equal partnership in 45.2%; workers favor automation for 46.1% of tasks “For 46.1% of tasks, workers express positive attitudes toward AI agent automation” | arxiv.org ↗ |
| Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence: A global study 2025 | University of Melbourne and KPMG International | 2025 | 32,352 employed people in 47 countries, November 2024 to January 2025 | Most acceptable human-AI split for managerial decisions on hiring, pay, promotion and allocating work | AI 100%: 2%; AI 75%: 10%; equal: 29%; humans 75%: 45%; humans 100%: 14% “Only ten percent believe AI should dominate managerial decision-making” | mbs.edu ↗ |
| 2026 Developer Survey: AI data | Stack Overflow | 2026 | 12,547 developers answering this question, June to August 2026 | Opt-in survey; tasks developers do not use AI for and do not plan to | Writing communications 45.9%; running production systems 36.0%; writing tickets and plans 30.5%; writing tests 8.5% “46% do not use AI there and do not plan to” | survey.stackoverflow.co ↗ |
Which tasks do people most want to keep for themselves?
Tasks involving people, judgment and creative control. Arts, design and media workers favored automation for only 17.1% of their tasks (Stanford). 71% of Americans opposed AI making final hiring decisions (Pew, December 2022). 46% of developers do not use AI for writing communications and do not plan to.
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers: What Americans Think | Pew Research Center | 2023 | 11,004 US adults, December 2022 | American Trends Panel, probability-based. An older wave of all adults. | 71% oppose AI making final hiring decisions; 7% favor it “they oppose AI use in making final hiring decisions by a 71%-7% margin” | pewresearch.org ↗ |
Why do workers want AI to take over some tasks?
Mainly to free time for higher-value work (69.4% of the reasons given in the Stanford study), and because tasks are repetitive (46.6%) or AI could improve quality (46.6%). Among workers voicing concerns, the top one was lack of trust in AI's accuracy or reliability (45.0%).
Numbers you may have seen
These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says.
- Workers want AI to automate 46% of their jobs (Stanford). 46.1% is the share of 844 listed tasks whose average rating leans toward automation, not weighted by time. Only 7.1% got a strong vote.
- 75% of employees are comfortable working with AI agents (Workday). The sample was 2,950 decision-makers and software implementation leaders, in a vendor survey. It does not describe the general workforce.
- Only 10% of employees trust AI to make decisions (KPMG). The question covered only managerial decisions about people. 10% chose AI with 75% of the say and 2% AI alone; 29% chose an even split.
More from What Teams Trust
- F-2124–53%How much do workers trust the output of AI tools at work?
- F-2241–44%How often do people check AI output before using it?
- F-2317–45%How often is AI output wrong on real work tasks?
- F-2530–44%How many workers use AI in ways that break company policy?
- F-2642–48%How often do employees put company data into public AI tools?
- F-2721–29%How many organizations have had a security incident or data breach involving AI?
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