Most Companies Are Unprepared to Deploy AI, New Section Research Finds – AiThority

Section’s latest AI Proficiency Report finds that most of the workforce are novice-level AI users – and they’re anxious about AI’s implications.

Section, the enterprise AI school, announced the latest research from their AI Proficiency Report today, which shows most companies are unprepared to deploy AI in 2025.

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“The results are clear – most employees are untrained and unprepared to effectively and safely prompt AI to unlock meaningful productivity gains,” says Section CEO Greg Shove.

The study, which assessed the AI knowledge and tested for AI skill in 5,000 U.S., Canadian, and UK knowledge workers, shows most of the workforce is still getting started with AI, and very few have the competency to use it safely and effectively.

The research shows:

• Only 1% of the workforce are AI experts, and less than 10% are highly competent with AI
• Only 24% of employees have received AI training and support from their companies – and those that haven’t are much more likely to be AI novices
• Only 23% of employees are excited by AI’s implications on their jobs

“The results are clear – most employees are untrained and unprepared to effectively and safely prompt AI to unlock meaningful productivity gains,” says Section CEO Greg Shove.

They outlined 5 distinct AI types in the workforce: AI Experts (1%), AI Practitioners (8%), AI Experimenters (34%), AI Novices (54%), and AI Skeptics (11%).

Most AI Experts use AI daily (67%), save more than 20% of their time each week by using it (57%), and trust its contributions (100%). They also have strong buy-in from their employers and managers (93%), and access to company deployed AI tools (60%). But they’re only 1% of the knowledge workforce.

The majority of the workforce are AI Novices – those that haven’t yet figured out how to embed AI into meaningful workflows. And most have received no AI training or support from their organization (77%).

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The result? 79% are overwhelmed and anxious about AI’s implications on their job.

“We predict that more than half of enterprise general purpose AI/LLM deployments next year will fail to meet expectations in the first 12 months due to lack of proper training and change management,” Shove said. “LLM vendors are in for some rough renewal conversations in 2025, as these LLM deployments stall out due to lack of adoption.”

Among the top contributors to AI proficiency (or not) are:

• Company policy – Silence breeds worse results than bans, with the plurality of AI Skeptics working at a company with no explicit AI policy (34%). Beyond that, 43% of employees in companies that ban AI still use it, but only 8% are able to leverage it effectively.
• Access to quality training – 76% of the workforce has received no company training on AI, even though 63% work under favorable AI policies. Additionally, director-level employees and above are nearly 3x more proficient than individual contributors, suggesting training resources are reserved for senior employees.
• Manager attitudes – Even in companies that approve of AI use, a direct manager’s disapproval cuts AI proficiency in teams in half.

“Our survey data supports what we have observed: few companies are executing their AI deployments effectively, leading to lower adoption and disappointing ROI,” Shove said. “But with the right support and training, some employees are seeing significant value working with AI everyday.”

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