Forrester’s AIQ Reveals Severe Gaps In Employee Readiness For AI

Employers aren’t successfully equipping their employees with the understanding, skills, and ethics to succeed in a world of AI. And it’s becoming a bottleneck that inhibits productivity and return on investment. We measure this with AIQ, Forrester’s Artificial Intelligence Quotient, and we’ve got alarming new data pointing toward one conclusion: Employees lack sufficient AIQ to thrive in the era of AI. In our new report, AIQ 2.0: Employees (Still) Aren’t Ready To Succeed With Workforce AI, we update our research into the competencies that employees need to succeed when using AI. What we found should be a wake-up call to the vast majority of employers.

Your Employees Still Aren’t Ready For Workplace AI

Like the vast majority of employers, you’ve probably rolled out at least some workforce AI tools to at least some of your employees. But have you followed your peers in believing the lie that AI is easy for employees to use, doesn’t require any special skills, and automatically drives massive productivity increases? Based on our research, it’s likely that:

  • You’re already using AI without upskilling your employees. While a strong majority of AI decision-makers say their organizations are using AI applications, only half say they offer AI training for nontechnical employees. Workforce AI applications abound: Microsoft Copilot Chat (or Microsoft 365 Copilot if the employee is lucky). Google Workspace with integrated Gemini. Enterprise ChatGPT. But most are deploying these applications without investing in workforce training. Training isn’t sufficient to raise AIQ, but it’s an input, and employers are failing the test.
  • Enough of your employees fear AI and its potential impact on their jobs. Forrester’s forecast shows that very few jobs were lost to AI in 2025 and that future job losses, while meaningful, will not constitute a job apocalypse. But employee fears are pervasive anyway, sometimes due to public statements by their own CEOs, who engage in pervasive AI-washing – that is, blaming financially driven layoffs on AI replacement when AI isn’t the cause.
  • Employees’ AIQ hasn’t tangibly increased over the past year. Despite all the money spent on pilots, deployments, and licenses, organizations face a hidden weakness: Their employees don’t know how to use the tools. For example, the percentage of those who know what prompt engineering is and how to use it increased by just 4 percentage points, from 22% in 2024 to a meagre 26% in 2025. Prompt engineering is central to using Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace, and similar tools, so this stagnation impedes productivity. But it’s not your employees’ fault. It’s you – the employer – who haven’t yet cultivated a learning and engagement environment sufficient to helping employees attain these skills.

    Graphics showing prompt engineering only rose from 22% in 2024 to 26% in 2025

  • Low AIQ is stymieing potential productivity. Everyone who adopts workforce AI tools seeks to raise productivity. Employees with higher AIQ are more effective at doing so. Employees with low AIQ might not adopt the tools at all — or might misuse them in a way that drives negative productivity, as they’re forced to redo work that AI did incorrectly the first time. Your employees most likely don’t know when to question the outputs of AI, despite the risk of hallucination or coherent nonsense. They’re probably not sure how to be responsible and ethical when using AI. It’s a recipe for them to get frustrated and abandon using the tools altogether in too many cases.

Improve Your Team’s AIQ With Forrester Decisions

You can take our updated assessment for yourself right now. For more impact, however, we designed AIQ as an assessment tool for Forrester Decisions clients to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. You can do this today, as part of your Forrester Decisions relationship. You will gain tactical and strategic recommendations on how they can become far more successful with AI. Clients can access two services that apply AIQ to your own employees:

  • Forrester Decisions AIQ Survey. Forrester Decisions seat holders can run the AIQ survey with your employees and receive core AIQ guidance. Your employees don’t need to have a Forrester license to take the survey; you can survey hundreds or even thousands of employees. Set up a preliminary Guidance Session to kick off the process.
  • Forrester VIP Strategy Session or Assessment Initiative Workshops. If you hold a VIP Leader seat, or have access to an Assessment Initiative Workshop, you can run the AIQ survey with your employees and receive more advanced AIQ guidance. Compared with the Guidance Session approach, this path includes faster turnaround times for data results, a longer 2-hour delivery session, and multiple weekly updates on AIQ survey fielding progress.

Read our full report, AIQ 2.0: Employees (Still) Aren’t Ready To Succeed With Workforce AI, to start your journey toward making employees successful with AI.

J. P. Gownder is a vice president and principal analyst on Forrester’s Future of Work team and the creator of AIQ.