Are we being lied to about AI adoption rates?

This week Barry Phillips questions what we are being told about AI adoption rates and calls for a whole lot more scepticism.

Transcript

Hello Humans!

And welcome to the weekly podcast that aims to summarise in five minutes or less an important issue relevant to AI and the world of HR. My name is Barry Phillips. 

This week is all about a big question and its this

Are we being lied to about AI adoption rates?

And the answer is possibly not. But we do need to be sceptical, particularly here in the UK and Ireland, about how we interpret reports on AI adoption. The vast majority of them originate in the US, making direct comparisons with adoption rates on this side of the Atlantic difficult and, in some cases, misleading.

Here's why.

First, the lag problem. Across many areas of workplace practice, larger US employers tend to act as early adopters, with ideas filtering through to UK and Irish workplaces only after a noticeable delay. Take DEI as an example. Large US corporates were embedding it into leadership roles, training and reporting as far back as the early-to-mid 2010s, while many UK and Irish organisations only began adopting the same language and structures years later, after US-led multinationals and global professional bodies had normalised it.

Second, the size problem. Many of these reports focus on large enterprises that look nothing like the typical employer in the UK or Ireland. Take three of the most widely cited surveys from last year:

+ Gartner – AI Trends and Use Cases 2025

+ McKinsey – State of AI 2025

+ KPMG Generative AI Survey Report 2025

McKinsey and KPMG deliberately target large, often multinational organisations and senior leaders. These are not a representative cross-section of employers by size. Gartner's AI reports aren't based on an employer sampling frame at all, but targeted client surveys. None of this reflects the reality of the UK or Irish employer base, where the majority of jobs sit within small and medium-sized enterprises.

At Legal Island, we've been surveying SME employers on AI adoption in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland since ChatGPT first gained traction in early 2023. The picture that emerges is strikingly different from the headline figures in the "big reports." Where these suggest adoption rates sitting somewhere between experimentation and relative maturity, our own research tells a different story. This is one of largely unregulated individual experimentation with generative AI, and little to no structured investigation of AI capability beyond that.

The numbers being quoted may not be lies. But they may not be your reality either.

Until next week, bye for now!