A majority of American workers, according to a recent Resume Now survey, believe that algorithmic leadership would make workplaces fairer and more efficient, with 66 percent stating that AI-led management would improve both fairness and efficiency.
Why It Matters
The findings underscore a growing willingness among workers to accept AI for logic-based and administrative management tasks, while reserving emotional and motivational responsibilities for human managers. This mirrors broader research indicating that employees are rapidly adopting AI tools, along with persistent concerns about job security and transparency.
Employers are under pressure to scale AI while maintaining trust and ensuring legal compliance. Worker acceptance of AI in leadership roles could accelerate deployment decisions that impact hiring, promotion, and performance evaluation frameworks.
Roughly 78 percent of respondents in a survey from cybersecurity firm Anagram said they are already using AI tools on the job, often in the absence of clear company policies, and 45 percent confessed to using banned AI tools at work.
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What To Know
Resume Now surveyed 968 U.S. workers in June and reported that 66 percent believed AI-led management would make workplaces fairer and more efficient.
The survey also found 73 percent of respondents supported AI involvement in major company decisions such as hiring and budgeting, and 55 percent said AI could make better promotion decisions than humans.
“When employees feel they’ve been treated unfairly by their human managers, it’s often rooted in a perception that decisions about careers and even the business are based on favoritism, feelings, and intuition rather than facts and data,” Lance Ulanoff, TechRadar’s editor-at-large, told Newsweek.
At the same time, workers drew boundaries: 64 percent said motivating teams was a skill best left to humans, and 57 percent said only humans could truly empathize, while just 34 percent said they would prefer an AI manager.
Ulanoff said the Resume Now’s survey findings reveal a critical misunderstanding about AI, however.
“Many people don’t realize that some business bias can be baked into AI systems,” Ulanoff said. “This bias often stems from AI being trained on existing data or from algorithms created by a narrow group of developers who don’t reflect the true breadth of the workforce.”
Recently, companies have demonstrated a widespread and rapid adoption of workplace AI tools. Microsoft and LinkedIn reported in May 2024 that 75 percent of global knowledge workers had used generative AI, and that many employees already brought AI tools to work.
Other new surveys also captured worker anxiety around AI. In February 2025, the Pew Research Center found that 52 percent of U.S. workers expressed concern about AI’s future impact on the workplace, and 32 percent believed AI would lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long term.
Business leaders will likely need to invest in training and organizational change to realize AI’s potential, experts say, and only a small share of companies have reached maturity in AI deployment despite planned increases in investment.
What People Are Saying
Lance Ulanoff, TechRadar’s editor-at-large, told Newsweek: “In my opinion, the most notable finding is this: ’57 percent say only humans can truly empathize and understand emotions.’ This suggests that respondents recognize a limitation in AI management. If they were to approach an AI with a personal issue, they might not receive the most empathetic or helpful response.”
HR consultant Bryan Driscoll told Newsweek: “Workers think AI would be fairer because they’re fed up with human managers’ bias, favoritism, and double standards. But let’s not kid ourselves. AI isn’t objective either. It’s built on biased data and programmed to please, which means it can replicate discrimination and enforce corporate priorities without pushback.”
Sara Gutierrez, chief science officer at SHL, told Newsweek: “AI can help standardize the decision-making and bring more transparency to things like promotions or evaluations. But ‘fairness by default’ is a misconception. Responsible design and ongoing monitoring are required to make sure the system works as intended.”
What Happens Next
Employers seeking to adopt AI for management decisions are likely to face pressure around transparency practices and guardrails.
Resume Now found that 85 percent of workers said greater AI transparency would increase trust, and 39 percent expressed concerns about surveillance or data misuse.
“Long term, if companies lean on AI as the boss, workers risk trading one flawed system for another, this time with less accountability and no humanity,” Driscoll said. “Fair workplaces aren’t built by replacing people with algorithms, they’re built by addressing bias, enforcing accountability, and centering workers in decision-making.”
