Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the workplace, promising to help employees complete tasks faster and more efficiently. But embracing tools such as ChatGPT could carry an unexpected career risk. New research suggests that supervisors may view employees who use AI as less trustworthy, potentially affecting their performance evaluations and chances of promotion.

The study, published in The Leadership Quarterly, was conducted by Samuel Meyers and Dr. Yochanan Bigman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, alongside Dr. Roman Briker of WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. Across six studies, the researchers investigated how AI-assisted work influences managerial trust and professional judgements.

One experiment asked participants acting as supervisors to decide whether to accept an employee’s reported working hours or verify them independently. Participants were told whether the employee had completed the task alone or with AI assistance, allowing researchers to examine how this information influenced trust.

The difference was substantial. Employees working independently had a 68% chance of being trusted, compared with just 24% for those using AI. Supervisors were not judging the quality of the completed work, suggesting that simply knowing AI was involved could undermine confidence in an employee.

Although AI-assisted work attracted greater suspicion than independent work, it was still viewed more favourably than copying another person’s work. Nevertheless, the consequences extended beyond trust. Further experiments linked AI use to poorer performance assessments, lower perceived contributions to the organisation and diminished promotion prospects.

“AI is changing not only how we work, but also how we judge the people we work with,” said Bigman. He warned that employees could produce better results more efficiently yet still lose managerial confidence because they relied on AI, making adoption a psychological and managerial challenge as well as a technological one.

However, company policies appeared capable of changing these perceptions. When organisations explicitly encouraged AI use, the negative effect on supervisory trust was substantially reduced and no longer statistically significant. Where AI was prohibited, or policies were absent, employees using the technology continued to face significant distrust.

Neither the importance of a task nor supervisors’ personal experience with AI consistently removed this disadvantage. A separate study involving academic supervisors and graduate students reinforced the findings, showing that greater student reliance on AI was associated with lower levels of supervisory trust.

The researchers cautioned that conflicting workplace expectations could encourage employees to hide their AI use. Such behaviour, sometimes described as “shadow AI”, could create further difficulties for organisations seeking transparency while encouraging technological innovation and productivity.

The findings suggest employers should establish clear policies supporting responsible AI use and provide managers with appropriate guidance. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly common, its workplace value may depend on more than efficiency alone. How supervisors perceive employees who embrace the technology could prove just as important to their careers.

More information: Samuel Meyers et al, Psychological Reactions to Subordinates’ LLM Use at Work, The Leadership Quarterly. DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2026.102004

Journal information: The Leadership Quarterly Provided by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem