For GMs weighing how much AI guidance their staff needs, new Gallup data offers a clear answer: a lot. National workforce numbers show manager support decides whether AI helps or hurts a workplace, a pattern radio’s own sales surveys have already flagged.
Ninety-nine percent of the 102 Chief Human Resources Officers surveyed in Gallup’s Global CHRO Roundtable say AI is somewhat or very important to their organization’s strategy, but half say they are not confident in their managers’ ability to guide employees’ AI use. Gallup’s separate workforce survey found employees at AI-adopting organizations are almost evenly split on whether their culture has improved (24%) or worsened (25%) over the past year, while just over half (51%) say it has stayed the same.
The clearest dividing line is the manager. Employees who strongly agree their manager champions AI are far more likely to say AI has transformed how work gets done than those who don’t (33% vs. 4%). Manager support also tracks with culture improvement: 31% of employees with strongly supportive managers say culture has improved, compared with 21% of those without that support.
Radio’s own numbers tell a similar story. An April survey covered by Radio Ink found 63% of respondents across sales organizations cited a lack of training as their top barrier to AI adoption, a figure that jumped to 75% among frontline salespeople. Just 39% of sales managers flagged training as a barrier at all.
A separate SalesFuel survey found only 37% of sales managers fully understand AI’s value to their team’s success, and without that buy-in, adoption stalls regardless of what tools a company deploys. SalesFuel Senior Vice President of Research Kathy Crosett said, “AI isn’t finding you better salespeople. It’s finding better technology users.”
On the overall scale, fifty-seven percent of Gallup’s surveyed CHROs say they’re now providing AI training specifically for people managers, 62% are creating centers of excellence or internal AI champions, and 78% are encouraging peer learning and experimentation.
