AI is changing how people work together. Leaders can shape those changes to reinforce the culture they want.

In the past few years, the use of AI has accelerated. An employee asks AI a question they once would have discussed with a colleague. A presentation that used to take all day is ready before lunch. Is this a good change? Or not?

It’s hard to know since we’re adopting this new technology so quickly that establishing policies and strategies for its use often lag behind.

The use of AI to research, draft, analyze, summarize and solve problems is rapidly reshaping how people work together. As new habits take hold, expectations about speed, collaboration and good work shift. That’s how AI starts changing a company’s culture. Too often, those changes take hold before leaders have considered how AI use can reinforce the company’s core values.

Gallup’s 2026 research gives us a glimpse of how differently employees are experiencing these changes. At workplaces that had implemented AI, 24% said their culture had improved over the past year, while 25% said it had worsened. These two extremes show that AI alone doesn’t determine the outcome. The choices that leaders make about how AI is used are what really matter.

As AI becomes part of the workday, leaders face three key tradeoffs. How leaders handle these clearly signals to employees what the organization values — and what it doesn’t

A report that once took five hours now takes one. That’s helpful, but someone still needs to question the findings and decide what they mean.

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