An analysis of employer reviews on Glassdoor shows that workers are becoming steadily more critical of AI in the workplace. And their complaints go well beyond fear of losing their jobs.

The headline number is stark: among US workers, the share of positive AI comments fell from 81 percent in 2019 to 43 percent by mid-2026. Negative comments rose to 53 percent.

The topic's weight grew too: AI mentions in US reviews jumped 240 percent from May 2025 to May 2026.

The split by occupation

  • Executives are by far the most AI-positive group.
  • Software architects mention AI more often than any other role and rate it mostly positively.
  • Software engineers — whose work is writing and reviewing code — are much more sceptical: 57 percent of their comments skew negative.
  • Insurance claims workers are almost entirely negative. Their complaint is usually the same: management forcing buggy tools on them.
  • Writers, accountants and customer service reps lean critical by a four-to-one ratio.
  • Butchers or electricians — roles AI barely touches — rarely mention the topic at all.

There is an interesting threshold: once a role hits a moderate level of AI exposure, AI comments show up regardless of how much automation actually threatens that job. The argument arrives before the threat does.

Two roads to satisfaction, many to frustration

Detailed positive reviews fall almost entirely into two buckets: 44 percent come from workers whose companies benefit from the AI boom, and 41 percent praise their employer for providing tools, training and support. About 27 percent of positive reviews contain only generic comments with no real detail.

The criticism is far more varied:

  • 20% — fear of job loss (the single most common complaint, but far from the only one)
  • 14% — the company forces them to use AI
  • 13% — AI as a distraction from core business, or as degrading the customer experience
  • 10% — internal AI use as alienating: workplace surveillance, automated messages from management
  • 8% — bosses' productivity expectations are unrealistic
  • 10% — the company is too slow to adopt AI or does not provide the right tools

That last item matters: a tenth of the negative comments come from people who are pro-AI in spirit. Their complaint is not the technology but the lack of access to it.

Gen Z women

The sharpest divide sits here. Men rate AI positively 45 percent of the time, women just 32 percent. By generation, Gen X is the most receptive at 47 percent, Millennials 40 percent, Gen Z 33 percent.

Among younger workers the gender gap is stark: only 21 percent of AI comments from Gen Z women are positive, against 42 percent from Gen Z men. Among Gen X the gender gap can be explained by differences in industry and occupation; according to Glassdoor's analysis, for Gen Z that explanation does not hold at all.

Glassdoor's analysts add a caveat: some of the 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.