Using ChatGPT at Work? Your Boss May Trust You Less
A new study finds that workers who use ChatGPT and other AI tools on the job may end up with managers who trust them less, even when nothing is being hidden.
The research comes from Samuel Meyers, a Ph.D. student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with his adviser Dr. Yochanan Bigman and Dr. Roman Briker of WHU–Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. It was published in the journal The Leadership Quarterly. The team ran six separate studies to see how using large language models, the technology behind tools like ChatGPT, changes the way supervisors see their employees.
In one test, people acting as supervisors had to decide whether to trust an employee's report on how long a task took, or check it themselves. The supervisors knew whether the employee had done the work alone or used AI. Employees who worked without AI earned trust 68% of the time. Employees who used AI earned trust only 24% of the time. This happened even though the supervisors were not judging the quality of the finished work, only how it was made.
The researchers also compared AI use to outright copying someone else's work. Using AI hurt trust, but not as much as plagiarism did. Still, lower trust had real effects. In further experiments, employees who were trusted less also got worse performance reviews, were seen as contributing less to their company, and were seen as less ready for a promotion.
Dr. Bigman explained that AI is changing not just how people work, but how people judge each other at work. He said an employee could use AI to do better work, faster, and still lose their manager's trust just because AI was part of the process. He added that companies need to see AI adoption as more than a tech issue. It is also a people issue, tied to psychology and management.
What this means for you
If you use AI tools at your job, this study suggests your manager might quietly trust you less, even if your work is just as good or better. That is a strange and unfair outcome, but the research points to one clear fix: clear company rules.
The study found that when a company openly encouraged AI use, the trust penalty mostly disappeared. When AI was banned, or when there was no policy at all, employees who used it were trusted less. Interestingly, how important the task was, and how much experience the supervisor had with AI, did not reliably fix the problem on their own.
This site exists to explain how AI is showing up in daily life, for people who are busy but want to actually understand what is going on. Nobody should need a dictionary to follow news about a tool as common as ChatGPT, and this study is a good example of why plain explanations matter.
A related study looked at real graduate students and their academic advisers. The more students used AI, the less their supervisors trusted them.
What you can do about it
- Check if your workplace has a written policy on AI use. If it does not, this might be a good time to ask for one.
- If your company allows or encourages AI, feel free to use it and be open about it.
- If there is no clear policy, talk with your manager about expectations before relying on AI for important work.
- Keep in mind that quality of output may not be the only thing shaping how your manager sees you.
The researchers warn that unclear rules could push workers toward hiding their AI use, something they call "shadow AI." That secrecy could make the trust problem even worse over time. They say employers should not just hand out AI tools and walk away. Real policies and training for managers may be needed to protect trust in the workplace.
The study's bigger point is a kind of paradox. The same technology built to make you better at your job might make your boss trust you less for using it.
As a next step, check whether your own workplace has a clear policy on AI tools, and if it does not, consider raising the question with your manager.
Source: Phys.org
