St. Louis Fed research: AI use at work is broad, but shallow in most jobs

New indexes built from the Real-Time Population Survey — a nationally representative survey of US adults — suggest generative AI has reached most occupations without dominating any of them.

As of May 2026, 45 percent of US adults aged 18–64 reported using generative AI for work. Researchers from the St. Louis Fed, Vanderbilt and Harvard find adoption touching roughly four in five detailed occupations, yet in most of those occupations fewer than half of workers actually use the tools. Only a small share of occupations — largely computer-oriented — pass 70 percent adoption.

The authors also make a methodological point: exposure estimates built by classifying AI chat logs (an approach used by several AI vendors) can overstate how relevant the technology is to real work, compared with asking workers directly.

For readers of this site, the practical takeaway is that being in an “exposed” profession does not mean most of your peers already use AI — in many fields the norm is still forming, and workers who learn to verify AI output early are ahead of that curve, not behind it.