Gen Z believes using AI is making their colleagues dumb and lazy, but may paradoxically see it as key to their own promotion, Wharton says

“What we find is deep ambivalence on how Gen Z is thinking using AI,” Benjamin Lira Luttges, a postdoctoral scholar at Wharton who led research on the report, told Fortune. One in six respondents reported using AI at work, even when they were specifically told not to. “There’s a legitimate trade off between benefits and costs that you get from using AI,” he said. Gen Z survey respondents, for example, may see themselves as AI power-users, Lira Luttges said. According to the survey, respondents who reported using AI more frequently worried less about its impact on intelligence and motivation, indicating AI anxiety may resolve over time.