Tech workers who skip AI face triple layoff risk

Gallup’s survey found technology workers who used artificial intelligence at work less than once a month faced roughly three times the risk of being laid off compared with tech peers who used AI at least monthly. The poll compared responses from employed and unemployed adults about how often they use or used AI on the job.

About 62% of respondents who had been laid off reported using AI once a year or less, compared with 50% of currently employed respondents. At the high-use end, 28% of employed respondents said they use AI frequently, versus 22% of people who had been laid off. Gallup described the gaps as statistically significant after adjusting for age, education, industry and time since each layoff.

Technology workers were overrepresented among those laid off: they made up 13% of laid-off respondents while accounting for 6% of the employed workforce. Within the tech group, employees who used AI less than monthly were three times more likely to have been dismissed than those who used AI at least monthly. Gallup reported a similar pattern across other industries but said the association was weaker outside technology.

Only 1% of respondents who lost jobs named AI as the primary reason for their layoff. Meanwhile, 21% of employees said their employers reduced staff in early 2026. Gallup framed frequency of AI use as an indicator of how ready workers were for change and noted the measure is correlated with job retention rather than identified by most respondents as a direct cause of layoffs.

Gallup wrote that “Workers who are AI non-users appear to have been more vulnerable in the job market.” The firm added that data from coming quarters may show whether workers who seldom use AI continue to face higher odds of job loss.