Three quarters of employees now use artificial intelligence every day, but most are not ready to let it act without a human signing off first.
That is the central finding of a new global study from TeamViewer, the digital workplace software provider, and it carries a clear message for collection agencies and debt buyers deciding how far to push AI in their operations: adoption is not the same as trust.
The study found that 61% of respondents prefer AI to take no independent action at all. Even among the 35% who say they are ready to let AI act on their behalf, 71% would limit it to narrowly defined tasks. Only 5% have no concerns about AI operating without a human in the loop.
The hesitation comes at a cost. More than half of respondents (56%) often or always verify AI outputs before relying on them, spending an average of two hours per week checking AI-generated work. Another 51% admit they do not always know when to trust AI and when to double-check it.
For ARM firms weighing agent-assist tools against fully autonomous workflows, the findings suggest the workforce is not rejecting autonomy, just invisible autonomy. Seventy percent of respondents are comfortable with AI acting on its own as long as they can step in when needed, and 40% want AI to detect and fix issues early while keeping them informed. Trust rises when guardrails are visible: strong security and privacy protections (39%), notifications before major changes (36%), limits on what AI can access (36%), activity logs (33%) and rollback options (31%).
IT departments are furthest along. Ninety-nine percent of IT decision-makers would delegate at least one task to AI, and 26% describe their departments as at least partially autonomous. IT leaders expect nearly 40% of digital workplace services to run autonomously by 2030.
“Organizations will not succeed by giving AI unlimited authority,” said TeamViewer CEO Oliver Steil. “Trusted autonomy, not unchecked automation, is what will unlock the next generation of productivity.”
Notably, workers do not expect AI to take their jobs. Only 2% expect their role to be eliminated by 2030, while 28% expect to delegate more tasks and focus on higher-value work.
