The study, reflected in the results from Research led by MIT published last year, suggests that even using AI for low-stakes tasks like proofreading “could lead to significant negative consequences in high-stakes contexts,” such as drafting legal documents, the study’s authors wrote.

For the young generation of digital natives navigating AI anxiety In the environment of following peers using technology and AI removing them from jobs, the fear of technology making people dumber is dominant. But that didn’t stop them from using AI—even when they were clearly told not to.

A new led by Wharton surveyconducted in partnership with Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, found that young people are ramping up their use of AI, although their concerns about it causing lazy thinking persist. A survey of nearly 2,500 US adults between the ages of 18 and 28 that ended in October 2025 found that 79% of respondents believe that AI is making people more lazy, and 62% said they have concerns that it will make people less smart.

“What we found was deep ambivalence about how Gen Z thinks with AI,” Benjamin Lira Luttges, a postdoctoral scholar at Wharton who led the report’s research, said. luck.

Despite these fears, Gen Z is increasing their use of AI. The survey found that 74% of respondents used an AI tool such as a chatbot at least once in the past month, from 58% of young adults in the US reported having used bots by February 2025, according to data from the Pew Research Center. One in six respondents reported using AI at work, even when they were specifically told not to.

The paradox of Gen Z’s willingness to use AI in the office, even amid ongoing concerns about the technology’s impact on critical thinking, reveals the young generation’s complex feelings toward AI, according to the report’s authors. After all, Gen Z’s intense relationship with AI runs deep. tight-fitting fifth generation worried about AI displacing them at work, however they are lead the workplace in adopting AI.

Although they require some decoding, Gen Z’s disruptive nature of AI will be critical in designing a path forward for the technology, which is more broad, to better integrate into the workplace, suggests Lira Luttges.

“Young people lead the adoption of new technologies, and many things that are often seen as fringe, as not mainstream, are adopted by young people and eventually become part of the mainstream,” he said. “So in a sense … looking at Gen Z is a way of looking at the future of work.”

Understanding Gen Z’s passion for AI

Lira Luttges estimates the biggest psychological factor informing Gen Z’s attitudes towards AI is the same bias towards instant gratificationa trait more prominent in younger, developing minds.

“There is a legitimate trade off between the benefits and costs you get from using AI,” he said. “Our brains are wired to prefer smaller, immediate rewards versus longer, delayed rewards.”

As Gen Z struggles to find or keep jobs, as well as scaling their career ladders, job performance enhanced by an AI advance may hold more appeal than the less visible threat of losing critical thinking skills. Similarly, even if an employer does not want an employee to use AI in certain work tasks, that workers, especially if young, consider completing their tasks more important than disobeying their boss, especially if the risk of getting caught is low, Lira Luttges said.

Anyone—not just Gen Z—can fall victim to better-than-average effecta phenomenon that is statistically impossible as most people generally believe that they are above average in a specific task. Gen Z survey respondents, for example, may see themselves as AI power-users, says Lira Luttges. Sure, AI may impair critical thinking skills and make some people lazy, but not those who fill out the survey.

How Gen Z is shaping the future of work

To maximize how AI is used in the workplace, employers should not ban AI, but embrace its ambivalence, the report’s authors argue. According to the survey, respondents who reported using AI were more often concerned about its impact on intelligence and motivation, indicating that anxiety over AI can be resolved over time.

But addressing the AI ​​concern does not address the question of AI use affecting critical thinking. Some experts on the future of work, including Mark Beasley, professor and director of the Poole College of Management at North Carolina State University, believe that a critical thinking gap, not an AI skills gap, will pose a serious threat to organizational pipelines and business operations. Beasley SPOKE luck last month the threat posed by AI to entry-level jobs may mean insufficient training and experience for mid- and eventually high-level positions in the near future.

“The biggest risk organizations face is stagnation,” he said.

But as long as workplaces are intentional about how they implement AI, Lira Luttges says the technology won’t cause a significant impact on critical thinking.

“For every task, there are two types of efforts,” said Lira Luttges. “There is an effort that can be trusted in the task, that is the nature of the thing that you do, and that kind of effort is the effort that you make, and can be translated into learning.

“You should outsource the crap, not the craft,” he added.