Employee Sentiment and AI Adoption: Evidence from Employee Reviews

• In Event: Labor Impacts of AI

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work at an unprecedented pace. Most research on the impact of AI on the labor market has focused on estimating exposure and analyzing the effect of AI on employment, worker displacement, and wages. Yet very little is known about how workers experience the deployment of AI at work. As AI tools become embedded in most office jobs, understanding employee perceptions is critical for organizations and policymakers in managing this transition effectively. In this paper, I study how the diffusion of AI has affected employee sentiment, and what factors explain variation in employee experience in high and low AI adopting companies? Specifically, I examine whether roles with higher AI adoption show larger declines in workers’ satisfaction.

I use data on employee reviews submitted to Glassdoor between 2019 and 2025. The dataset covers millions of reviews across all occupations in the US. Glassdoor asks workers to submit numerical ratings of employers (on a scale of 5) on seven categories: Overall rating, Compensation and Benefits, Culture and Values, Career Opportunities, Diversity and Inclusion, Work Life Balance, and Senior Management. In addition, workers rate the CEO (approve or disapprove) and the Business Outlook (positive, negative, or neutral) of their companies Employees are also asked to write free text on the pros and cons of their jobs. The numerical ratings along with the text allow for numeric evaluation of the impact of AI, in addition to text analysis on the reviews.

The primary identification strategy used in the analysis is a differences-in-differences research design in which I compare employee ratings in companies in the top and bottom quartiles of AI adoption before and after the launch of ChatGPT in the end of 2022, controlling for occupations. For most workers, the launch of ChatGPT represents a largely exogenous shock to AI availability. Parallel pre-trends in overall sentiment from 2019 through 2022 support the validity of the research design. I complement the econometric analysis with text analysis of the text of pros and cons reviews that mention AI to understand the mechanisms underlying the impact of AI on employee sentiment.

Preliminary results indicate that high-adopting companies experienced sharper decline in sentiment by approximately 0.17-point more than the decline in sentiment in the low-adopting groups after the launch of ChatGPT. The decline in sentiment is observed across all the categories that employees rank. The text analysis shows that skill development dominates positive AI reviews, while workload concerns are the primary driver of negative reviews. These findings have direct implications for HR policy and organizational design. Workers who experience AI as a learning and development opportunity report better experience as their companies adopt AI. Meanwhile, those who experience AI as an added layer of work have negative perception of it. Organizations that treat upskilling as an afterthought to AI adoption will likely have to deal with employee disengagement and anxiety. Policymakers focused on inclusive technology adoption should consider workforce development incentives tied to AI adoption.

Author

• Loujaina Abdelwahed, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
  Presenting Author