A Glassdoor analysis shows positive AI sentiment among US workers dropped from 81 percent in 2019 to 43 percent by mid-2026, while negative comments rose to 53 percent.
Executives remain the most optimistic group. Software architects mention AI more often than any other role and rate it mostly in a positive light. Software engineers, whose work focuses on writing and reviewing code, are much more skeptical, with 57 percent of their comments skewing negative.
At the other end of the spectrum, insurance claims workers rate their employers’ AI efforts almost entirely negative. They typically complain that management forces buggy tools on them. Writers, accountants, and customer service reps also lean critical by a four-to-one ratio.
Jobs that AI barely touches, like butchers or electricians, rarely mention the topic at all. But once a role hits a moderate level of AI exposure, AI comments show up across nearly every profession. Overall, AI mentions in US reviews jumped 240 percent from May 2025 to May 2026.
Workers find only two paths to AI satisfaction but many to frustration
Most detailed positive reviews fall into just two buckets. 44 percent come from workers whose companies benefit from the AI boom. 41 percent praise their employer for providing tools, training, and support for AI adoption. About 27 percent of positive reviews contain only generic comments with no real detail.
The criticism is more varied. Fear of job loss accounts for 20 percent of negative comments, making it the single most common complaint, but far from the only one. Another 14 percent say their company forces them to use AI. And 13 percent see AI as a distraction from core business or as something that degrades the customer experience.
Ten percent criticize internal AI use as alienating, citing workplace surveillance or automated messages from management. Eight percent call their bosses’ productivity expectations unrealistic. About ten percent of negative comments actually complain that their company is too slow to adopt AI or does not provide the right tools, meaning these workers are pro-AI in spirit.
Glassdoor’s analysts point out that some negative sentiment overlaps with office jobs where burnout and layoff fears are already common. Many reviews, however, draw a direct line between AI and job losses.
Young women are the biggest AI skeptics in the workforce
Men rate AI positively 45 percent of the time, compared to just 32 percent for women. Gen X is the most receptive, with 47 percent positive comments. Millennials come in at 40 percent, Gen Z at 33 percent.
The gender gap among younger workers is especially stark. Only 21 percent of AI comments from Gen Z women are positive, compared to 42 percent from Gen Z men. Among Gen X workers, the gender gap can be explained by differences in industry and occupation. For Gen Z, that is not the case at all, according to Glassdoor’s analysis.
At the industry level, tech workers mention AI most often, with positive and negative comments roughly balanced. Media and communications workers also bring up AI frequently but lean more critical. Workers in arts and nonprofit organizations hold the most negative views. Company size matters too: At small firms with fewer than 200 employees, 51 percent of AI comments are negative. At large companies with more than 10,000 workers, that figure rises to 67 percent.
Other studies back up the Glassdoor findings
Glassdoor reviews do not represent the entire US workforce, and unhappy workers tend to leave reviews more often than satisfied ones. That makes the shift over time more telling than the raw numbers, assuming the platform’s negativity bias has stayed consistent across the years.
The Glassdoor data also fits a broader pattern. A survey of US adults from April found that Gen Z is particularly critical of AI, and a study from Anthropic showed overall skepticism among US workers, especially around skill erosion and job losses. Stanford’s AI Index 2026 supports the pro-AI tilt among executives with a documented massive perception gap, with 73 percent of US experts rating AI’s impact on the job market as positive while only 23 percent of the public agreed.
What it means
For the people making things, the shift is clear. Tools that were once seen as helpers are now viewed as obstacles. The frustration comes from being forced to use buggy systems or having productivity expectations rise without the right support. Young women face the steepest uphill battle, feeling alienated by surveillance and unrealistic targets. The gap between leadership and staff is widening, with executives seeing opportunity while workers see threats to their daily work.
