Employers are raising productivity expectations even as employees struggle to translate AI confidence into tangible results, according to a survey of 2,000 employees released by WalkMe on Tuesday.

The platform provider found that more than half of respondents said AI has led their managers or teams to expect more output in the same amount of time.

Starting from the executive level, business leaders are passing down the pressure to use AI. More than half of employees said senior leaders do not fully understand the company's public AI strategy.

"The higher up you go in a company, the more confidence they have in AI," KJ Kusch, global field CTO at WalkMe, told Channel Dive. "But when you get to the frontline employee level, they struggle with how to use AI. Some people trust AI for context or writing, but I think the core question of 'whether AI is truly completing the most important tasks' has not been resolved."

Some employees are developing their own strategies to cope with AI productivity pressure. One-third of respondents admitted to pretending they are more skilled with AI than they actually are. Another third said they have passed off AI-generated work as their own.

However, confidence in AI remains high. Nine out of ten respondents said they feel confident with AI tools, but only one in four said AI works successfully on the first try.

Kusch said the survey points to a "confidence trap": employees claim to be proficient with AI, but results do not match their claims.

"I'm not sure AI is delivering outcomes that truly create value for the company, like driving revenue or completing critical business work," she said. "But employees are definitely using it. They're making better presentations than I've ever seen, but I'm not sure that really matters. They write the best performance reviews and send the best emails, but I think people want it to do more."

The survey also found generational differences in AI confidence. More than nine in ten Gen Z employees said they are confident with AI, but they are also the most likely to exaggerate their skills. Among Gen Z respondents, nearly half admitted to overstating their AI proficiency, compared to 13% of baby boomers.

"It's less about faking it and more about 'you don't know what you don't know,'" Kusch said. "If an AI agent makes a suggestion, you might not know if it's right or wrong, so you just trust it. I'm not surprised they're more confident because they're usually not the ones catching the mistakes. It's the people with more work experience who catch them."

Kusch added that one of the most effective AI implementation strategies she has seen is using AI personas as interactive on-screen coaches to help employees make decisions, rather than instilling fear about job security.

"It's like bringing back Microsoft Clippy," she said. "Instead of asking employees to type in answers, they're asked to help verify outputs, so humans feel like they're in the loop with AI. And I think AI is currently delivered mainly through answer prompts, a bunch of work, and agents telling you right or wrong at the end. It's not a tool; it's more like filling out a giant comment box."