Marketplace Tech · Monday, August 3, 2026
A survey by Yugov and Indeed reveals a significant disconnect between employers, employees, and managers regarding AI skills in the workplace. Employers are actively recruiting for 'AI natives' – individuals highly skilled and comfortable with AI who default to using it for workflows – but many workers feel they lack these necessary skills. Managers, too, are uncertain about their ability to lead teams with advanced AI proficiency.
“We found a three-way mismatch when it comes to the rise of AI at work. So on one side you have employers, and they're recruiting for specific skills and they have very high expectations of those skills. Then we have the workforce, and they don't think they have those AI skills yet. And then we have managers within organizations, and they're not sure they're ready to lead the people who have these skills.”
“For us, when we looked at this particular study, we define AI natives based on their behavior, not simply their demographic data. So an AI native is someone who's they're highly skilled and comfortable with AI technologies, and they fundamentally default to AI to design, execute, and scale their workflows from beginning to end.”
“And so, what we're seeing is there's a lot of excitement about how AI can transform businesses. But workers are moving a little slower right now.”