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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesSome workplace AI users say they keep productive prompts to themselves or hide how they use AI—but a 2026 survey does not show that co-workers generally conceal their skills. It reports attitudes and self-described behavior among 13,276 adults who use AI at work, not a census of employees. Its findings are best read as a snapshot of surveyed AI users, not a measure of every workplace.
What the survey found
TechRadar reported the Use.AI survey on October 5, 2026. The survey covered 13,276 adults who use AI in the workplace, in organizations across the UK, US, Canada, Australia, the EU, and Latin America. Use.AI’s October 1 press release also described a survey of that size and scope. The coverage does not provide the field dates, sampling method, weighting, exact questionnaire wording, or full denominator details for each result.
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- 62% of regular workplace AI users believed better AI skills give an employee an edge.
- 38% said they kept productive prompts to themselves to gain a professional advantage.
- Among those described as keeping prompts private, 44% said they did not want colleagues to gain the same productivity advantage, while 31% said they had spent time and effort developing the prompt and did not want to give away that advantage.
- 41% of workplace AI users worried that colleagues or managers would learn how much time and effort AI saved them.
- 36% said they had hidden AI use from co-workers, and 21% said they had hidden their productivity skills from a manager.
These are survey-reported percentages, not estimates for all employees. The precise denominator for every sub-result is not clear in the published coverage, so the figures should not be turned into headcounts or treated as directly comparable measures.
Does this mean co-workers are hiding their AI skills?
Only in a narrower sense than the headline suggests. The reported behaviors concern withholding productive prompts, hiding AI use, and concealing productivity skills from a manager. They do not establish that colleagues are hiding a broad set of AI capabilities, nor do they show how often this happens across the overall workforce.
The answers also point to more than one possible motive. Some respondents described protecting a productivity advantage; others cited the effort they had put into developing a prompt. The survey does not establish that every person who keeps a technique private does so for the same reason.
How much weight should you give the results?
The findings are useful as evidence that some surveyed workplace AI users view AI know-how as professionally valuable and report keeping techniques private. But the available reporting does not give enough methodological detail to assess how representative the sample is, verify the exact question wording, or determine all percentage denominators. It therefore cannot prove that secrecy is widespread in every workplace.
Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index article, “Not Using AI at Work? Your Co-Workers Are,” discussed workers’ reluctance to admit using AI. That is separate, older research with a different design and population; it provides context, not confirmation of Use.AI’s 2026 figures.
What employers can take from it
Use.AI co-founder and CEO Ihor Herasymov argued that employers may need to consider how they reward people who turn private know-how into shared capability. That is his interpretation and recommendation, not a finding that a particular incentive has been tested or would solve the issue.
For employers, the reported tension is straightforward: if employees think sharing a useful prompt could weaken their own position, simply asking them to share may not be enough. The survey does not prescribe a proven fix, but it gives organizations a reason to examine whether their recognition and reward systems make collaboration worthwhile.
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