New research suggests senior leaders’ distrust of AI is driving inefficient implementation and widening Australia’s AI skills gap.
SYDNEY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research by Amplitude, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMPL), the leading AI analytics platform, has revealed a generational divide in how much business leaders and their employees trust artificial intelligence (AI), a trend that may be limiting the benefits of the technology to Australian businesses and hampering the development of much needed AI skills across the country.
Just 4% of workers aged 55–64 say they trust AI recommendations over their own judgement, compared to 31% of 18–24 year olds, according to Amplitude’s study. At the same time, 39% of those aged 18–24 use AI tools daily in their job, compared to just 20% of those aged 55–64. These figures highlight a stark gap in trust between older professionals, who are more likely to be in leadership roles, and younger professionals who are most likely to be in more junior positions.
Yet despite the propensity for younger professionals to use AI tools more regularly at work, only 13% of respondents aged 18–24 years and 9% of those aged 25–34 indicate that AI is core to their organisation’s work. Comparatively, close to half (48%) of respondents say their organisation is getting better at AI but still has a way to go, while 24% say their organisation rarely uses AI at all.
This lack of AI direction at an organisational level is reflected in the development of AI skills among professionals, especially among younger generations. There are more professionals aged 18–24 who primarily upskill in AI outside of work hours (40%) than those who upskill during work hours (32%). Only 5% of respondents across all age groups say they upskill in AI through mentorship or peer learning.
These figures suggest that, although AI tools are being actively used for work among younger professionals, there appears to be a lack of strategic AI guidance from the senior ranks. Without leadership-led AI frameworks, businesses may run the risk of experiencing a mismatch between the latent potential of AI tools and the outcomes of their implementation – whether official or unofficial.
“The age-based discrepancy in trust around AI means senior decision-makers may inadvertently downplay its potential, limiting the value organisations derive from these tools,” said Mark Drasutis, Head of Value, Asia Pacific and Japan, Amplitude. “Without strategic implementation, AI is more likely to fall short of its goals. At a national level, this generational trust gap risks creating a structural adoption ceiling that restricts skills development and exacerbates Australia’s existing AI skills shortage.”
The research also revealed:
- AI use is widespread but not universal: 27% of respondents use AI tools daily and 33% a few times a week, while 24% say they use AI tools only occasionally, and 15% report not using AI at work at all.
- AI use is concentrated in content and information tasks: The most common use cases are writing or editing documents, emails and reports (44%), summarising information (38%), and supporting data analysis or reporting (31%).
- A high avoidance of AI for judgement-heavy tasks: 28% avoid using AI for decision-making or strategic planning, 25% for data analysis or reporting, 22% for coding, debugging or technical work and 20% for scheduling or meeting preparation.
- Top reasons for avoiding AI in higher-stakes tasks: Prefer own judgement/creativity (34%), lack of trust in accuracy (32%), outputs feel generic (30%), and confidentiality leakage risk (29%).
- Self-assessed AI skill levels are low: One-third (33%) describe themselves as beginners or not skilled, another 34% say they are somewhat skilled – able to use AI tools but not expertly – and only 6% consider themselves highly skilled and ahead of the curve.
- Overall trust in AI outputs is limited: On a scale of 1–5, the mean trust score for AI outputs at work is 2.59, with 50% trusting their own judgement more than AI, compared with 15% who trust AI more.
- Perceived productivity gains are modest: While 12% say AI has transformed how they work or somewhat helps (54%), 23% believe it adds more work than it saves, and 11% say it actively slows them down.
- Organisational AI maturity remains low: Only 8% say their organisation is AI-driven, while 65% spend either no time or less than an hour per week learning or experimenting with AI tools.
- Career impact expectations are mixed: Over half (58%) believe AI will meaningfully change demand for their role in the next 5 years, while 32% do not believe it will change the demand for their job; 16% say AI users already have a career advantage.
- Personal AI use affects its use in the workplace: Nearly half (48%) strongly agree or agree the personal use of AI has influenced how they use it at work, while just 23% disagree or strongly disagree it’s influenced their use at work.
- AI is creating uneven team dynamics and quiet tension at work: While 45% say AI hasn’t changed team dynamics, 18% report colleagues competing to prove they are more AI-savvy and 11% say non-users resent those who rely heavily on AI. Perceived tension is concentrated among younger workers, with only 23–25% of 18–34 year olds reporting no AI-related tension, compared with 64–66% of workers aged 55+.
For more information about the research, contact amplitude-syd@archetype.co.
Note: all percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
About Amplitude
Amplitude is the leading AI analytics platform, helping over 4,700 customers—including Atlassian, Burger King, NBCUniversal, and Square—build better products and digital experiences. With powerful AI Agents embedded across our platform, teams can analyze, test, and optimize user experiences faster than ever. Ranked #1 across multiple categories in G2’s Winter 2026 Report, Amplitude is the best-in-class solution for product, data, and marketing teams. Learn more at amplitude.com.
